By DR. GASTOR MAPUNDA(University of Dar es Salaam)
TANZANIA is now witnessing a lot of investment in the education sector. This goes hand in hand with expansion in enrollment, growing number of schools and universities. Additionally, more and more students graduate from schools, colleges and universities.
Job
and business opportunities are also unfolding; partly as a result of
internal dynamics and partly because of the expansion of the East
African Community (EAC). Nevertheless, these new situations come with
their own challenges, depending on how each country positions itself.
The fact that there is now free labour movement in the Region,
presupposes the need to be competitive.
Under this kind of pandemonium, we need
to ask ourselves as a nation, whether or not our education system
prepares our graduates to compete. We all need to take some time and
reflect. My reflection is going to be based on the trends in the
provision of education.
Now that Tanzania is dreaming of
becoming a middle income country by 2025, science and technology cannot
be overemphasized. Many industries are opening up, agriculture is slowly
mechanizing and modernizing with some foreign investment; the
telecommunications industry is also growing up, playing its facilitative
role, and much more.
There are more or less new developments
in our society. Our education must keep abreast of these developments if
we really wish to proudly achieve our goal. Unfortunately, our
education system seems to be operating in the same way it did 30 years
ago when we were still operating under ‘socialism’ – gone are those
days. We now need to wake up from the slumber and ready ourselves for
what is happening nationally and globally today.
Operating in the way is like putting new
wine in old wineskins. The danger is that both the wine and the old
wineskins will be ruined – and we will find ourselves emptyhanded. The
question of producing competitive graduates cannot be incidental, it
must be properly planned. The planning should be in such aspects as
quality and quantity of teachers, resources, nature of learners, and so
forth.
Besides, the Government needs to
establish a database of people with skills; what skills they have, their
age groups, succession plans, and whether such skilled people can
satisfactorily handle the intended industrialization.
I am not sure the nation has such a
database. Our education system has an important role to play in such
endeavors. There must be educational institutions which are
strategically set aside for the purpose of producing specific categories
of skilled people. It is impractical to assume that all teachers,
schools, or even universities should be of the same status, and so
should be treated in the same way.
Even during Mwalimu Nyerere’s reign,
there were some schools which were meant to produce national leaders.
May be this was not declared publicly, but many old government leaders
studied in those schools; and they know which schools I am referring to.
Likewise, in all developed countries there are special universities
where more serious national and international matters are handled.
Degree holders should be fewer than
technicians, but see now how each institution wants to become a
university. During Mwalimu Nyerere’s time (and even before then) we had
technical schools which did a wonderful job to train students with
technical skills.
The nation also had technical colleges
for almost all key sectors; electrical, agricultural, marine, and so
forth. Some of these have been turned into universities, while some have
been left to fend for themselves, and some are being threatened to be
deregistered because they are not operating effectively. I am afraid our
neighbours may outsmart us if we do not work strategically in the
education sector.
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