Bakhita Girls Secondary School

Bakhita Girls Secondary School is a girls' boarding secondary school off Zammimba Road in Balaka, Malawi, run by the Canossian Daughters of Charity (the Canossian Sisters). The school's website traces its origins to 1975, when, at the request of the Bishop of the Diocese of Mangochi, the Canossian Sisters began a girls' hostel for Balaka Secondary School. This grew into the Bakhita Distance Education Centre in 1986, which closed in 1999. Bakhita Girls Secondary School opened in January 2003 with 30 Form 1 students and nine staff; the school says it now has more than 600 students in three streams per form, all boarding full-time on campus. The school teaches Form 1 to Form 4 on the curriculum of the Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB), which ends with the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE). Its website lists 13 subjects: English, Chichewa, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, life skills, geography, history, social studies, computer studies, Bible knowledge and agriculture. Admission requires the Primary School Leaving Certificate, a pass in the national selection examinations and a completed application form. The Canossian Daughters of Charity are a Catholic religious institute founded by Magdalen of Canossa in Verona, Italy, in 1808, whose main works are education, catechesis and care of the sick. Josephine Bakhita (1869–1947), the Sudanese-born Canossian sister whose name the school bears, was canonised by Pope John Paul II on 1 October 2000. Balaka is the headquarters of Balaka District in the Southern Region, created from Machinga District in 1998. The town lies roughly 130 kilometres north of Blantyre and 200 kilometres south of Lilongwe, on the road from Zomba to Lilongwe, and had 36,308 residents at the 2018 census. The school's number, as given on its website, is +265 999 105 255 (also +265 882 456 429); its email is info@bakhita.mw and its postal address P.O. Box 312, Balaka, and the website says fee details are available from the school office.

Off Zammimba Road, Balaka, Malawi
Balaka

14°59′20″S 34°57′49″E