TANZANIA'S 49 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE, WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES?!

By Friday Simbaya,
Peramiho


TANZANIA will be celebrating its Independence Day on December 9, 2010 which she got in 1961 from colonial powers, and now it will celebrate its 49 years of anniversary since independence, with Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere as a first president.

The Late Julius Nyerere was born on March 22, 1922 at Butiama Village near Musoma Town in Mara Region of Tanzania. He died on October 14, 1999 in London but buried at his home village, Butiama.

On the other hand, Political Independence of Tanzania in 1961 has brought with it a numerous number challenges that need to be address urgently.

These included the lack of indigenous human resources for running the government machinery; transformation of the economy, uneven and limited provision of social services, integrating a very limited commercial and manufacturing sector into an economy which would benefit the majority of the people, this is according to the Book entitled ‘Nyerere on Education’ Volume II.

This book was written by the late Father of the Nation of Tanzania, Mwalium Julius Kambarage Nyerere and edited by thrice editors, Elieshi Lema, Issa Omari and Rakesh Rajan, stressed that there is need of dismantling western development model, which valued individual rather than collective achievement.

Nyerere, on his question of how to lift the country from this colonial legacy into empowered state, he chose to set a development path that addressed the social, economic, and cultural needs of the broad majority of the people.

Nevertheless, there many challenges that need to addressed but for this moment let us focus specifically on education sector in Tanzania.


Regarding education, Nyerere emphasized that any education system meant to ground and advance the values of a particular society, has to have a purpose and therefore relevance.

It must be able to prepare its recipients to be active agents of change in their environment by shaping their modes of thought, inculcating positive attitudes, transferring skills necessary to improve individual conditions and that of society.

Education for self-reliance (ESR), published in 1967, was supposed to give guidance to the provision of relevant education for a Tanzania socialist society. Ask someone, what is education? Moreover, you are likely to get an image of a school building. Ask also, what is quality education?

In addition, you may get descriptions of clean building, orderly desks, study books and disciplined pupils. All these things are important.

Nevertheless, Mwalimu Nyerere challenges us to think beyond, because for him education is much more. This book is the second volume of Mwalimu’s collected writings on education. The collection spans 36 years, from 1961-1997.

For Mwalimu, education was suppose to link to development. It had to be relevant in everyday life of people and to the challenges of the day. His was a transformative vision. Mwalimu challenged teachers, ‘work for revolution. Don’t fear revolution’. He urged students to think, to ask questions, to analyze. Yet his was a constant battle- with his fellow teachers, leaders and bureaucrats- as this vision of education failed to implement.

Why? Is the challenge any less today? Reading Mwalimu Nyerere today is to interrogate the present, and to learn the lessons of our history, this is just a synopsis of his book. Let us look at our current situation of education system and a few challenges that it is facing.

What do stakeholders say

I have tried to talk to a number of education stakeholders and these are what they said: one old man, who did not like his name to appear in the newspaper said, education sector is facing a lot of problems, like lack of teachers, frequent changing of syllabi and so on.

In addition, there is a system of recruiting of unqualified teachers (half-baked teachers, those have under gone crush program) to in both primary and secondary schools just for the sake filling number.


He noted that the present government has being changing syllabus day in day out including education ministers all together. We have witnessed during these few years the syllabus of schools have been changed many times within short time, he said without specifying how many times. He said this has made many pupils/students out of track because today they told this and tomorrow they told the syllabus is changed.

“For instance, we started with Joseph Mungai, Margrate Sitta, Prof. Jumanne Maghembe and now we have Dr. Shukuru Kawambwa as a Minister of Education and Vocational Training, and each minister comes with his own idea about  improvement of education,” he stressed.

Even the spirit of volunteering is slowly dying out from teachers because they only concentrate more making money through extra lesion commonly known as ‘Tuition’ due to poor working conditions and wages and salaries they ar getting at the end of month.

 About the quality of teachers, some stakeholders said the government should at least make sure tstudents who to  undergo teachers training collegs and also make sure students who are selected to go teachers training colleges have right division not just picking anyhow for the sake filling the numbers but quality must be considered first hence quality education that linked to development.

The school infrastructures are not attractive to entice the pupils for the good learning environment.

George Milinga, a resident of Peramiho said that there is a need to improve our education system that will make pupils/students not memorize things in their heads for the sake the examinations.

They (students) should also get education which is standard not just education, and it is the duty of the government to make sure that schools both public and private are providing better quality education.

He said that our education should prepare our children to compete in the international labor market after completion their studies on what refers as education for self-reliant. Also, in provision of education in Tanzania there some social class whereby the haves and have not people.

That is, people with money will get quality education and those without will get just education in our public schools. The poor people will continue fetching education in our public schools which is good because they face many challenges but those with money will fetch better education in private schools or go overseas for better quality education.

The government should make sure that it reduces the ever growing gap of people with money and those without money, hence evenly distribution resources.

A Doctor of Philosophy Student at University of Joensuu of Finland, Department of Computer Science and Statistics, Marcus Duveskog has challenged students to desist from memorizing things but instead they should concentrate on building skills.

Duveskog who is also doing research at Tumaini University, Tanzania Iringa Campus said that education system in Tanzania has made most of students both in primary and secondary schools and even higher learning institutions to memorize things which denies them to building on skills and not competent enough to face the challenges.

“Students should not learn by heart things but should learn to understand things and not memorize things for the sake of answer examinations questions,” he emphasized.

Duveskog said recently during the computer exhibitions where at least 16 kids were presented certificates at Ukombozi Primary School after a two very intensive weeks with daily sessions at the school in Iringa Muncipal Council in Iringa Rregion.
                                                                   

                                                          The way forward

The government in collaboration with other education stakeholders should invest heavily in education hence economic growth. The budget that is allocated the education sector should also go up to meet to standards of provision education relevant and important.

My advice to students, they should develop the culture of reading books because the University of Today is collection of many books, so should study hard if they want have a bright future.

“The books are like food; we cannot do without. To enjoy the company of a book is as much a culture leap forward as changing from a nomadic life to a life rooted in the soil,” a quotation from Anoro Panta.

In conclusion, let us celebrate our 49 years of anniversary of independence by remembering what our father of nation has taught us by putting them into practice on what he taught us. Tanzania and other African governments should use education as tool for liberation and national development, rather than continue apologizing to failures in giving quality education because of poverty.

“The basic educational problem of African states since 1980 has been that the resources available to African governments have declined dramatically. And when something like 40% of national budget has to be allocated to debt servicing, even while arrears continue to make that debt larger, and the annual interest higher, there is not much left for the governments other responsibilities…. Increasingly, it is possible for governments to choose only between evil.”