Secondary school

The secondary school is divided in 4 years (Form 1 – 4) and every year is subdivided into 3 terms. The fees are paid per term. Because of the boarding requirement, the National and District Boarding Schools are a lot more expensive compared to Community Day Secondary Schools (see Programs).
According to the system the students start Form 1 around the age of 14 and will finish Form 4 around 18 or 19 years. In practice they are older most of the times because they fail a year, cannot pay the tuition fees, and/or will continue at a later age.

The 13 subjects are the same at every secondary school and are divided into 3 departments:

Humanities department              Bible knowledge
                                                        History
                                                        Geography
                                                        Social and Life Skills
Science department                    Agriculture
                                                        Biology
                                                        Computer Studies
                                                        Mathematics
                                                        Chemistry
                                                        Physics
Language department                English
                                                        Chichewa
                                                        French

Students can choose a minimum of 6 subjects and have to do the Form 4 exams in these subjects to graduate for secondary school and get the MSCE (Malawi School Certificate of Education) certificate. Most students choose to do exams in 6 - 9 subjects. If a student scores very high on a subject they will get 1 point and the lowest they can score is a 9. Like the primary school point system these criteria might also change every year, but on average the point system looks like this:

1             90 – 100 points                 6             60 – 64 points
2             85 – 89 points                   7             55 – 59 points
3             76 – 84 points                   8             50 – 54 points   
4             70 – 75 points                   9             below 50 points
5             65 – 69 points

Only the best 6 subjects count for the graduation result and English have to be part of these 6. The best score a student can get with 6 subjects is 6 points. To graduate from secondary school a student is not allowed to have more than 46 points on the 6 subjects in total. Which means 5 subjects with no more than 8 points, and no more than 6 points for English or Chichewa.

This point system is the same for National Boarding School, District Boarding School and Community Day School and all secondary schools are at the same level. So for example a score at a students’ graduation exam of 12 points at National boarding school is equally good as a 12 points score on Community Day school.

This means that a student can continue to tertiary school from any secondary school as long as they score below 47 points for their MSCE graduation exam. To be selected for university on average boys have to score 15 points or lower and girls 20 points or lower.

The pass rate at Community Day Secondary Schools is a lot lower though compared to the boarding schools, due to the fact the children are not boarding at the school and the inteliigent level of students is higher at the boarding schools, because they are all selected based on high primary school results. Besides that there are normally less students per class at the boarding schools compared to the Community Day Schools, so children get more attention of the teacher at boarding schools. The children of the Community Day Secondary Schools go home after school and the main reasons for them dropping out (after not be able to pay the fees) are family interruptions (like working on the land or fishing), early pregnancies, marriage, or simply not having enough discipline.