Demand for higher education in Tanzania to double by 2030, says World Bank

Dar es Salaam. Demand for higher education is predicted to double by 2030 despite a decline in government funding for the sector in recent years, according to a World Bank report.

According to experts, this contradicts what is expected to be high demand for university slots as a result of the fourth industrial revolution, which will also necessitate the presence of highly skilled lecturers in order to produce excellent graduates.

According to the World Bank Group’s overview report titled Increasing Equitable Access and Outcomes of Higher Education Students in STEM in Tanzania 2021, demand for places at the higher education level is projected to surge from just over 230,000 in 2019 to between 482,000 and 597,000 by 2030.

The report, however, notes that the share of the higher education sector in an already shrinking education budget has been declining since 2014 (24.3 percent), though there was an improvement in 2019 (21.8 percent).

It shows that as far as the proportion of public expenditure on higher education over GDP is concerned, it went from 0.9 percent to 0.6 percent between 2017 and 2018 and then slightly up to 0.7 percent in 2019, which is far below the 1.1 percent average of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

Overall, the sustainability and efficiency of higher education financing has been a growing challenge, especially as the higher education student loan scheme has become a burden on the government budget as a result of growing demand and low repayments.

The majority of local colleges, according to analysts, have not significantly increased their resource mobilisation and diversification initiatives.

“Without adequate funding and substantial investments across the sector to meet the expected increase in demand, there will be a shortage of infrastructure, teaching equipment and academic staff with advanced training at the university level,” the report warns.

This, according to the report will translate into lower higher education access, especially for students from low-income and vulnerable backgrounds, as well as fewer and lower-quality programmes. The report states that achieving rapid expansion in a sustainable manner will necessitate complementary growth of private universities, based on the experience of other African countries.

“This can relieve the pressure on limited government financial resources to support the expected increase in students wanting to pursue higher education,” it says.

But 62 percent of the country’s 50 universities are private, making Tanzania one of the sub-Saharan African countries with the highest share of private sector coverage… “However, the private institutions account for only 31 percent of higher education enrollment, which is reflective of their small size.”

Private universities need to improve their management and governance, as many of them are small and unable to grow or provide higher-quality programmes.

“Effective regulation of private sector providers of higher education will ensure they can complement public universities and help with expansion of student spaces,” the report suggests.

The government seems to have stepped up to tackle the challenge head-on through the implementation of a large project worth $425 million (Sh972 billion), which among other things, is expected to improve higher education to a large extent.

The Higher Education for Economic Transformation (HEET) project, according to the Minister for Education, Science and Technology, Prof Adolf Mkenda, will be involved in renovating buildings and construction of new buildings.

New campuses will be built in areas where there are no higher education institutions, programmes will be improved and lecturers developed to specialise in important areas.

Despite the presence of many students who meet the criteria to obtain a higher education loan for the year 2022/23, there still has been a shortage of funds within the Higher Education Students Loans Board. This has raised complaints from students and sparked debate among stakeholders.

This prompted the government to increase funds from Sh570 billion that had been allocated to finance 177,000 students to Sh654 billion in a bid to finance all students. However, not all were successful.

“Still, the government and education stakeholders need to think of alternative ways to finance students and higher education, given that demand is expected to increase by 2030,” says Dr Samson Mtwenzi, an expert in education development issues.

“Most universities are in a dilapidated state, especially private ones. The government must look into this for the future of our education. The budget for education must increase to 20 percent from the current 13 percent,” he noted.