A press release from CSQBE on this said: “We have noted with regret that as a country we are sliding back to the times of the one party dictatorship when schools spent a lot of their precious time attending presidential rallies and dancing before the president.”

However government spokesman, Minister of Information and Civic Education, Leckford Thotho, argues the serious allegations are unfounded as there is no evidence to support the civil group’s claims.

“It is not true,” he told journalists. “It will be difficult to comment because there is no evidence.”

The statement adds that pupils are increasingly being pulled out of schools to line up on streets during presidential welcome and departures.

Signed by national coordinator Benedicto Kondowe, the body also said teachers must be in school as each and every educational calendar day is designed to achieve something worthwhile on the syllabus.

“Teachers and pupils must not be used as pawns and tools for political gains. This is against the spirit of multiparty democracy,” it adds.

CSQBE says no one should be ferried to dance and line up streets to welcome the president. This tendency was rife during the autocratic regime of the late Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda.