These complaints were echoed by other graduates of the bursary
programme who spoke to amaBhungane.
The main stumbling block, Bvalani said, was the language.
`We had just one year’s preparation for lectures in Chinese,` she
said. `Sadly, all my early preparation was almost useless when I began
engineering lessons.`
Bvalani arrived in China in September 2014 after earning high grades
in the International General Certificate of Secondary Education and
A-levels through the Cambridge Board Secondary School examinations,
which she took at the private Kamuzu Academy in Kasungu.
After studying Chinese for a year, she said she did well in her HSK
Level 4 test, a requirement for foreign students intending to study at
a Chinese university.
But as the first and only foreign student in the university’s
department of chemistry and chemical engineering, Bvalani struggled
with the language used in lectures from the outset.
Bvalani said she also discovered that her results were inflated,
apparently to make it seem that her studies were progressing well.
This had become clear when she compared her actual exam marks with the
transcript she received, recording her year’s performance.
The international students’ department at the university lowered the
pass mark to 30% to accommodate her, but this only left her feeling
more disappointed and frustrated.
She also felt unhappy about being conscripted into a two-week
programme of quasi-military training that was a requirement for all
students at the university.
Bvalani said that one of the conditions for the scholarship was that
the return air tickets issued by the Chinese government only became
useable once foreign students have complete their courses, which can
take as long as five years.
If students wish to bail out before then, the return tickets must be
privately paid for.
Bvalani tried to leave China after her first semester but was advised
by her family and her Malawian peers to work harder. Finally, after
two-and-a-half years in China, she decided to cut short her studies
and go home.
In her final letter of withdrawal that she wrote to the Malawi Embassy
and the China Scholarship Council on June 5 2017, she said that in
order to become a good engineer for her country, she needed to know
what she was learning. `Therefore, I would like to withdraw and seek
tertiary education elsewhere,` she wrote.
When Bvalani told them she wanted to leave, she said university
officials offered to fund her to recruit more students from Malawi and
to help her start a business exporting Chinese goods to Malawi as an
inducement to stay.
She suspected that this was because the university did not want to
forfeit the subsidy paid by the government for foreign students. `I
declined because I was not going to be bribed at the expense of my
future,` she said.
Having decided to go home, Bvalani had to find resources to fund her
return air ticket. Back in Malawi after two-and-a-half years in China,
she started studying chemical engineering from scratch. She is now a
second-year student at the Malawi University of Science and Technology.
``I was so excited I was going to study abroad`
Another student, who ditched her bursary and started afresh in Malawi,
called it a day after studying medicine for two years in China.
Josephine (not her real name) was the beneficiary of an arrangement
between the Chinese government and Malawi’s privately owned Zodiak
Broadcasting Station (ZBS), under which high-performing female
students were sent to study in China under a programme called the ZBS
Best Girl awards.
The student in question, who wanted to remain anonymous, said she was
selected under this initiative in 2014 after attaining the highest
possible score in the 2013 Malawi School Certificate of Examination.
Josephine, at that time only 17, said that winning a scholarship to do
her tertiary education in China and leaving for the Far East in
September 2014 felt like a dream come true.
`I was so excited I was going to study abroad. Everything to do with
my studies in China was well arranged with the help of the ZBS, my
parents and the Chinese Embassy,` she said. `I believed China would
bring the best out of me.`
On arriving in the new country, she was warmly welcome by officials at
the Malawian Embassy in Beijing and moved to Shandong University,
where she was scheduled to study Chinese for a year.
She sat the language proficiency exam in her second semester, and said
she performed well.
But she discovered that this preparation was woefully inadequate when
the China Scholarship Council moved her to the medical school at
Jiamusi Medical University to begin her medical studies.
Josephine said she would never forget her first day in class. `I
literally got nothing out of what was being taught,` she recalls. `I
just couldn’t understand the lecturer.`
She had heard from other Malawian students how hard classes were to
follow in Chinese, but thought they were exaggerating. `I thought they
were lazy and not as smart as me,` she recalls ruefully.
The deeper she got into her studies, she said, the more confused and
frustrated she became. She began to realise that her one year of
language study was designed for basic communication, not for following
advanced scientific instruction.
Josephine said other students from earlier cohorts wrote numerous
letters to the ZBS and later to the Chinese Scholarship Council in
Beijing recounting her experience and asking if she could be
transferred to an English-medium university but was merely told to
give up the scholarship.
She resorted to learning by watching YouTube videos and tried to
source English translations of the Chinese text books they were using,
to no avail.
After two years, she withdrew and returned to Malawi where, like
Bvalani, she restarted her medical studies from scratch. Now 22, she
is currently in her third year at the University of Malawi’s College
of Medicine.
Josephine said that graduates of the bursary scheme were not trusted
to begin working as doctors in Malawi until they underwent a further
year’s orientation.
Preference for Chinese students
Wezzie Kamanga says she wrote to the ZBS complaining about her
unpleasant experience in China after travelling to the country in
early September 2011 as one of the second batch of ZBS Best Girl Award
students.
Kamanga stuck it out and graduated after a year of studying Chinese at
Shandong and five years studying medicine at Southeast University in
Nangjing city. But she said she had faced enormous difficulties,
particularly in regard to writing in Chinese characters.
She claimed foreign students did not have the necessary orientation
and suffered from a lack of information and the lecturers’ preference
for Chinese students.
`We were not informed of when our classes would start and missed lots
of lectures in the first year due to a lack of information,` she
remembers.
The lecturer who was supposed to help and advise them told them he was
only responsible for Chinese students, while the foreign students’
office claimed to be responsible only for foreigners who were learning
in English.
Classes were a serious challenge. `We could not understand most of the
stuff, because in language school we only learned basic Chinese, as
compared to the scientific Chinese that was used in lectures,` Kamanga
said.
Lecturers had greeted them with the words: `Foreign students don’t
pass my exams!`
She said the Malawians continued to struggle, but that their
enthusiasm eventually began to wane.
`Most of my classmates resorted to skipping classes and studying on
their own from English textbooks. These were not much help as they did
not cover the same ground as the ones in Chinese,` she said.
She said they tried translating word for word, which was
time-consuming. The Malawians’ grades fell below expectations and
soon, failing became the order of the day.
She said they tried to seek help from the Malawian Ministry of
Education and Chinese Embassy officials but received no response.
`Most of us were psychologically disturbed, especially with Chinese
classmates making fun of us and our shattered hopes of a better
education in China. Our days were spent in a state of emotional and
physical weariness; it felt as if our efforts were not paying off,`
she said.
Kamanga said another problem was the lack of clinical experience, as
medical students at Southeast University were only allowed into
hospitals in their final year.
She said that as she was about to enter her fourth year she returned
to Malawi on holiday and attached herself to Kamuzu Central Hospital
in Lilongwe.
There, she was shocked by how much she did not know. She said she
could not compare with her third-year counterparts from the College of
Medicine at the University of Malawi in terms of either knowledge or
clinical experience.
Even the little that she knew was in Chinese, so it was hard to
understand and communicate with other medical staff.
Yohane (not his real name) - a Masters student who also asked not to
be identified - echoed the claim that grades for foreign students

were
inflated.
He said he was disappointed with his MA degree certificate because he
had not studied some of the courses he was credited with.
These included a course in environmental politics which he had never
studied, but where he was given an 80% score in his final results.
In addition, the lecturers did not seem to keep records of students’
marks for assignments and exams because the students themselves were
asked to provide them.
`I was self-reporting my own grades to a gentleman who was recording
my grades on the transcript and I could easily have lied,` he said.
`Fortunately, my results weren’t bad.
`The system is so confused and unprofessional.`
On one occasion after Yohane delayed submitting an assignment, the
system reflected an 80% score even before the lecturer received it. He
said he found this frustrating because he had put his heart and soul
into the work and expected to be genuinely rewarded.
As a Masters student Yohane said most of his courses were offered in
English. However, fellow Malawians taking undergraduate courses in
Chinese complained that they understood only 10% of what they were
being taught.
`You have to be a super genius to learn a foreign language within a
year and then use it as a language of communication in medicine,` he said.
He recalled that everyone in his class passed their courses, including
colleagues from Kazakhstan, Korea and Thailand who understood no
English. `It was funny how they managed to do their assignments,` he
laughed.
He said that for one gender studies assignment, a non-English speaker
simply downloaded a biography of German Chancellor Angela Merkel from
the internet and got 90% for it.
As an undergraduate at the University of Malawi, where he had studied
before going to China, his average grade was 60%, while his minimum
exam result for his Masters was 85%.
`The school was so concerned with making us pass that they ignored our
failures. They ignored our real capacities and just rubber-stamped a
grade for us,` he said.
Yohane also alleged that there were efforts to indoctrinate foreign
students in Chinese political philosophy, which included attempts by
academics and the school to portray China as `saintly`.
When students disputed claims that the country is a democracy, the
lecturers would fume, he said.
`There was no academic freedom in the classes â€` you couldn’t speak or
write about many things. You had to go for neutral subjects because
you didn’t want to offend anyone.`
Connected to high-ranking government members
None of the seven scholarship beneficiaries we spoke to were chosen by
the foreign affairs department. They and three journalists, who have
visited China, told amaBhungane that many bursary students are
connected to high-ranking members of Malawi’s ruling Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) or the government.
They said this reflects the three-pronged system of recruitment for
Chinese bursaries: one in which the foreign affairs ministry handpicks
candidates; a second in which China reaches agreements with the
government and private institutions; and a third in which candidates
are invited in the media to apply to the Chinese Embassy online.
The ministry appeared to favour politically connected candidates, they
said.
They also alleged that the students chosen by the Malawian government
required less stringent entrance qualifications.
One student said he was in a group of about 18 students of which about
eight were related to officials in the government and DPP.
A senior journalist in Malawi said when they visited Chinese
universities in 2010, they noticed that many Malawian scholars were
the children or relatives of ruling party politicians, principal
secretaries or other senior government officials.
Asked for details of the bursary programme, Chinese Embassy
spokesperson Cui Jian Feng said that since the programme was initiated
in about 2013 more than 900 Malawian students have studied in China.
Feng said the embassy has no follow-up mechanism to assess how
graduates fared when they were back in Malawi.
When amaBhungane raised students’ criticisms of the programme â€`
including allegations that language was a major barrier, results are
inflated, lecturers are biased against foreigners, and the children of
senior Malawian politicians and officials are favoured for
scholarships â€` he declined to comment.
`I and other officials from the embassy cannot respond to your
questions because we are very busy,` he said. `There are few staff
members at the embassy, so everyone is busy all the time.`
At least four other attempts to obtain comment from the embassy were
unsuccessful.
AmaBhungane also spoke to a representative of the China Scholarship
Council in Malawi who identified herself only as Cecilia. She
confirmed that she had received questions via WhatsApp but was not
willing to answer these or telephonic questions.
Attempts to solicit comment from the Chinese Ministry of Education in
China, based in Damucang Hutong, Xicheng District, Beijing, were also
unsuccessful.
The person taking the phone call answered in Chinese and did not
appear to speak English.
Although the ZBS Best Girl programme still operates, it no longer
sends students to China.
Former bursary recipients said that after amaBhungane put questions to
it about the scholarship programme, the broadcaster called an
impromptu get-together with all students whose study it had
facilitated in China, attended by Chinese Ambassador to Malawi Liu Hu
Yang and the education ministry’s principal secretary, Justin Saidi.
They said that at the meeting, ZBS managing director Gospel Kazako
made no reference to amaBhungane’s questions but criticised the way
Chinese scholarships were awarded in Malawi as `dubious and imprudent`.
He allegedly called on the Chinese and Malawian authorities to do better.
The ambassador allegedly responded by insisting there was transparency
in the award of scholarships.
Approached for comment, Kazako referred amaBhungane to the coordinator
of the Best Girl Award, Owen Lupeska.
Lupeska said those selected to pursue studies in China knew what was
in store for them, and that girls were told as soon as they agreed to
go that they would first have to learn Chinese.
He said that when some Malawian girls wrote petitions complaining
about the language barrier, the ZBS, education ministry and student
representatives met Chinese Embassy officials who told them it was the
policy to teach undergraduates in Chinese.
`The ZBS had to ask parents or guardians to sign forms that they
agreed to have their wards take up scholarships,` he said.
He said the broadcaster did not discontinue the programme, but that
the Chinese had bailed out after 2014 when, at an award ceremony at
which she had been asked to officiate, former Malawian president Joyce
Banda announced that she would find scholarships in the US for the
three best runners-up.
`This did not go down well with the Chinese Embassy. So, the following
year [2015] we heard nothing from them [about any scholarships],` he said.
Malawian Ambassador to China Charles Namondwe also refused to comment,
referring questions to the foreign affairs ministry, `who will ably
respond to you`.
The foreign ministry’s spokesperson, Rejoice Shumba, said the ministry
was not aware of the predicament of students studying in China.
`We will be interested in getting to the root of these issues if they
are true,` she said. `Such information will help us conduct thorough
investigations and come up with durable solutions for the betterment
of our country.`
She requested evidence, including the names of universities where
Malawian students went through their alleged ordeal.
Shumba conceded that relatives of those in the government were among
those who had benefited from the bursary programme.
`The government always ensures that ministries, departments and
[state] agencies provide qualified candidates that participate in
these programmes,` she said. `However, other candidates could apply
directly to adverts placed in the media, over which the government had
no control.
`It is also premature to judge the productiveness of students who
undertake Chinese scholarships,` she argued.
She said the government had regularly received compliments from former
bursary students who had done well in their careers.
However, she said the ministry was in constant consultation with the
Chinese government to discuss any challenges. V.2847

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
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An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19 V.5316
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In recent years, South Africa has seen a significant influx of immigrants from various African countries, as well as other parts of the world. This has raised important questions about the country`s immigration policies and their impact on job creation for both locals and immigrants. The South African immigration system, like many other countries, is a complex and ever-evolving process that aims to balance the country`s economic needs with its social and cultural interests. Let`s take a closer look at how this system intersects with job creation in South Africa. The South African government implemented the Immigration Act of 2002, which outlines the country`s immigration policies and procedures. Under this act, foreigners are required to obtain a visa or permit to enter, work, or study in South Africa. The type of visa or permit required depends on the intended purpose of the individual`s visit and their country of origin. V.5312
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Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17 V.5313
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Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has said the public has shown great support for the final White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection which appeared in the Government Gazette on Wednesday. Briefing the media, he addressed what he saw as a long-overdue need to replace an outdated Citizenship Act, as well as enact proposed changes to existing legislation. V.5306
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