WHY TANZANIA’S EDUCATION SYSTEM NEEDS REVISITING

Education is acknowledged as a tool of liberation mentally and economically. However, it is a key sector whose transformation still lags behind.

The founding father of the nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, identified three enemies of development in Tanzania: poverty, ignorance and diseases.

Unfortunately, we are still fighting the same enemies 60 years after political independence. Admittedly, literacy rates have gone down; but the rising population and shortage of key infrastructures, compounded with the teacher/pupil ratio that has too many of the latter leave much to be desired.

The government has come up with many initiatives to improve Tanzania’s education, including scrapping some subjects, controversially combining unlike subjects, and so forth.

The initiatives, sad to say, have had little or no improvement on the quality of our education. Tanzania needs a paradigm shift in education if future generations are to be competent and competitive in the rapidly-changing world.

Speakers at the symposium organised by Mwananchi Communications Limited on Tuesday struck the right note with education stakeholders who stressed the need for overhauling the current system. Hopefully, their appeals on education quality will not fall on deaf ears.

Unlike in the past when almost all Tanzanian pupils attended public schools, many parents prefer private schools.

Political will is needed to rectify the situation. Otherwise, public school graduates will continue playing second fiddle to their private school counterparts – and the country’s manpower will largely be incompetent or semi-skilled.

Billions have been disbursed to local authorities for classrooms construction. It is a good move; but, if the education system remains the same, the outcome will not be any better.

There also is a need for more recruitment of teachers to match the rising number of learners. Otherwise, quality education will continue being elusive.

A shortage of teachers harms students, teachers, and the public education system as a whole.

MAKE ANTI-GRAFT DAY WORK

Even as Tanzanians and their well-wishers yesterday celebrated the 60th independence anniversary of Tanganyika – later Tanzania (Mainland) – the world was marking International Anti-Corruption Day (IACD) on the same day: December 9. On October 31, 2003, the UN passed a Convention against Corruption which entered into force on December 14, 2005 with the intention of raising public awareness worldwide on anti-corruption activities.

The multi-purpose Convention is designed to “promote and strengthen measures to prevent and combat corruption more efficiently and effectively; promote, facilitate and support international cooperation and technical assistance in the prevention of and fight against corruption – including in asset recovery; and to promote integrity, accountability and proper management of public affairs and public property.”

It is generally acknowledged that, when corruption penetrates politics, the economy and society in general, “it slows down economic development, undermines the sanctity of democracy, and adds to instability in government operations”.

Hence the need to heed this year’s IACD theme ‘Your right; your role: Say NO to corruption’ – and act accordingly.