Education programmes - Kikwete urges private sector participation in higher education programmes - Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has called on the private sector to team up with his government in exploring innovative ways of advancing implementation of its newly-unveiled higher education programme. “It is the government’s desire to see more participation of the private sector in building universities across the country,” Kikwete said Thursday in a keynote address at celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the University of Dar es Salaam, which were also attended by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, and UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro, among other former students of the university. The late John Garang, former Vice President of Sudan and leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army was represented at the ceremony by his widow and a son.

“Exponential expansion in secondary and higher education in Tanzania has created challenges related to the need to consolidate and advance the progress that has been made,” said Kikwete.

Regarding the development of education in the country, he said at independence in 1961, ignorance was one of the three major enemies of the young nation that included poverty and diseases.

“It is still the enemy we are pursuing. But I am proud to say that a lot has been achieved in the fight against ignorance despite being at a disadvantaged position when we started. Today, 97 per cent of our school-going children have space in primary schools compared to only two per cent in 1961.

“We now boast of 15,816 primary schools, compared to only 3,000 in 1961. We now have 4,367 secondary schools with a total enrolment of 1,638,399 boys and girls, compared to only 41 secondary schools with 11,832 students at independence,” Kikwete told the gathering of academics who included some of the university’s first graduates.

According to Kikwete, who graduated there in 1975, the University of Dar es Salaam has played an important role in shaping the Tanzanian society intellectually, socially and through professional engagements.

“This university has also made an impact away from home with a number of its experts and graduates recognised and given leadership roles in international organisations,” he said.

During Museveni’s days in the early 1970s, voluntary public services of the university involved using vacation time to take students out into the jungles of Mozambique, where they worked with FRELIMO freedom fighters against Portuguese colonialism in that country.

“At independence, this was the only university in the country with 13 students (opened on 25 October, 1961). Today there are 40 universities and constituent colleges,” Kikwete said, noting that the University of Dar es Salaam has 19,563 students out of total 135,376 students enrolled in universities across the country.

“We have a lot more work to do. We need to continue to expand access to education at all levels for our young men and women in order to cope with the demand for our fast growing population. We also have to keep abreast with the levels reached by other countries in our region,” he said.

For that reason, Kikwete explained that he took unprecedented interventions to expand secondary and higher education in terms of building more schools and colleges, increasing enrolment of students, making available teaching and learning facilities and recruitment of more teachers.

“It was this understanding that led us to come up with several policy decisions and actions. The government went into partnership with the people to build community secondary schools and by 2008 we were able to catch up with Kenya and Uganda in terms of student population in secondary schools,” he said.

The last five years have seen 3,337 new secondary schools built across the country, while the number of students enrolled topped 1,222,402, compared to 1,380,212 in Kenya and 1,088,744 in Uganda.

“Today we have 1,638,689 students in secondary schools,” the president added.

Meanwhile, the university’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Rwekaza Mukandala said that as a result of various developments at the university over the last 50 years, it has become one of the most dynamic institutions in Africa.

“In the 1970s and 1980s it was a seat of revolutionary ideas and active pan-Africanism. In recent years, it has produced internationally recognised scientific works in the fields of environmental sustainability, public administration and computer science,” he said. 

Pana 21/11/2011