Diploma mills are forbidden, But lets us separate illegality from quality of a certificate: Need for MAQA

On the degrees issues: Lets us differentiate authenticity from illegality

The jurist is not defending anything or 'not defending' anything...

But just that , from first principles of legality , retroactive application of law etc,

1. Where there is no law forbidding, nothing is illegal

2. Where a law later changes to introduce a new norm, those who acted differently before the change have not fallen foul of the law. This is important principle of legality

Thus, where an institution confers degrees lawfully, but later fails to satisfy certain new legal or quality criteria, the consequences of the inability to satisfy this new norm do not affect those who acted in the absence of the newly promulgated prescriptions. This is logical for to behave any differently would offend ius certum and ius praevium sub elements of the nulla poena sine lege maxims as well as nullum crimen sine lege principles

But legal does not of course mean robust or the most optimal ...but at least it satisfies legality

Implication: Diploma mills are not to be encouraged.

Whether due to lack of oversight or regulatory frameworks, or knowledge, some institutions offer degrees without per se offending any law at that time, and the standards of the education so offered at that time are such that they are consonant with prescriptions for quality as may exist, the degrees are legally offered and are genuine within the circumstances within which they are offered.

Those who get those degrees after the prohibition, act wrongfully and their degrees are unacceptable in the jurisdiction where they are barred and likely elsewhere.

But of course you can have an argument about the quality of those degrees given the nature of those universities... Nonetheless, that is a different debate altogether with its own nuances

Thus, in the matters in focus, the degrees were legally given although debates about their quality can continue as long as needed just as the debates about UNIMA vs Mzuni, or MZuni vs catholic or MIM vs other malawu certificates or UNIMA vs Western university based degrees.

Need for Malawi Qualification authority

Let something like “ malawi qualification authority- MAQA “ be established pronto to curb falsification of qualifications, influx of certificates bordering on fake etc

Or if money is a concern , restructure one of the existing institutions to ensure foreign qualifications etc have a dedicated attention .

The issue is not that people shouldn’t have doctorates or degrees , but that if these are fake , total factor productivity will plummet because we will end up unknowingly using them as yardsticks for placing people in key places .

Imagine a fake degree holder in aircraft maintenance kkkk or a fake medical doctor or a fake nuclear scientist or a fake holder of etc etc ... it can be dangerous

We need an enabling legislation and an institution to govern these matters of verification of qualifications etc

At present the issues are somehow tricky... people can only be named and shamed and indeed some may refuse to be shamed but may pass the blame to suppliers of those certificates and the absence of regulations.

Very few can fail a legality test , except of course those who simply forge the certificate .

Let’s do our part and fix this

Of course there may be resistance during consultations for obvious reasons but we must still do so for posterity . I have attached a previous post below for ease of reference on the development of this