Nyalonje, said this in Mangochi on Tuesday after visiting some secondary schools in the district to see some of the challenges the schools are facing where infrastructure development was one of the challenges school authorities mentioned.

“One thing we all know is that the construction industry is riddled with corruption and when it affects education it means that we spend maybe twice, three times, even four times as much on just one school we need to spend,” said Nyalonje.

She said this affects standards as the ministry use its allocation in the budget doing the same things instead of solving a number of challenges.

However, Nyalonje said the ministry is trying to find cost effective ways of building teachers houses, classroom blocks and other things in schools.

She said in few weeks’ time will be meeting with groups of people who have innovative ways of building cost effective buildings with materials that are durable and environmental friendly.

“Going forward, we have to recognize that we will never have enough resources, so we must have to do better with the few resources that we have and part of doing better is making sure that we build more cost effective, more cheaply, if possible and reduce corruption,” explained Nyalonje.

At Majuni Day Secondary School, deputy head teacher, Wonderful William complained of unfinished school hall that the contactor abandoned in 2017 and distance students are covering to and from school with some covering a distance over 20 kilometers one way.

Apart from Majuni, the minister also visited Sangadzi, Ntonda, Namwera, Masuku, St Monica community day secondary schools and Lusumbwi and Mangochi which are conventional.