North Western Province Permanent Secretary Willies Mangimela has commended the Examination Council of Zambia (ECZ) for decentralizing its service provision through the establishment of an Examination Services center in the province.
Mr Mangimela said the Examination service center is a clear demonstration of government’s practical developmental agenda of bringing services closer to the people through decentralization.
The Permanent Secretary said this when he officiated at the launch of the ECZ service center in Solwezi yesterday.
He said the service center will accrue a lot of benefits to the people in the province among them merging of school certificates, replacement of all academic papers, solving examination related queries, correction of names on academic papers, retrieving of information from records and save as a storage center for examination papers and marked scripts.
“I implore all District Commissioners and District Education Board Secretaries to inform all people about the presence of this center in the province, let us use every opportunity to mention to the people so that they can start enjoying the benefits immediately, “Mr Mangimela said.
Mr Mangimela said the facility will also reduce on time of travelling long distances to attend to ECZ related matters which will certainly amount to economic benefits.
“The center is also bringing employment to the people in the Province. Provincial Administration stands ready to support this center by every means possible, my office will take a leading role in ensuring that people are informed about the establishment of this center and utilize the facility to the maximum, “he said.
He said people will now no longer be travelling to Lusaka to access ECZ services.
ECZ Director Micheal Chilala said the Council will be offering post examination center services adding that in its expansion programme it has observed that there are certain benefits which the council would have not known without establishing centers in provinces.
“We promised in 2016 to the people that we will take our services closer to the people and arising from our resolution and promise, I wish to indicate that today with the opening of this office we will be existing in eight out of the 10 provinces countrywide,” Dr Chilala said.
Dr Chilala said the Province has become economically active due to mining activities, industries and businesses adding that this has attracted an influx of people making the area prone to have people who may want to fraudulently obtain qualifications so that they can seek for employment.
“This office should be able to help with cleaning up so that those people who are employed are credible and appropriate for the jobs they will get, “he said
Dr Chillala said children who give up in life or dropped out of school due to early marriages, unwanted pregnancies, distances they could not write examination and had difficulties combining their certificates can now do so with the opening of the center in the province and easily proceed to other grades.
“We hope that by bringing the services closer to the people we will be contributing to the development of the Nation by ensuring that education which is one of the major services is complete in the way it is offered including the assessment services. We are also hoping that by bringing the assessment services closer to the people we will be able to tap into the local needs that we might not yet be attending to so that we can accommodate and adopt them into part of our operations and so that as Examination Council of Zambia we continue to reform in order to be adoptable to the demands of our various aspects of society,” he said.
Speaking at the same event Dean of Head Teachers Wallace Kanchele thanked ECZ and government for the facility saying a number of parents have spent a lot of money to travel long distances to access the ECZ services for their children.
“A number of children have not proceeded to the next grades because they have challenges going to either Kitwe or Lusaka to access the services and now government has provided the services closer to the people, thank you very much this is a dream come true, “He said
Mr Kanchele said the Head Teachers in the province will support the center in any way possible and ensure it is utilized fully.
The center is the eighth to be established out of the 10 provinces countrywide since 2016.
A commendable job ECZ but sureliy where are the architects in Zambia to design proper buildings than those common 4 corner structures like in the 1960s?
We congratulate Examination Council of Zambia for the development in the area
We congratulate them for opening an outlet there
Good works ba examination council of Zambia
When is it going to start operating