Expectations high as $425 million education project kicks off

Dar es Salaam. Higher education sector is expecting a major transformation in various areas including financing, infrastructure expansion and capacity building, thanks to the official launch of the Higher Education for Economic Transformation (HEET) project yesterday.

The five-year venture worth $425 million under the auspices of the World Bank aims to support Tanzania’s efforts in unleashing the power of higher education to propel the country’s economic development and transformation.

The project as well aims to address the country’s critical need for high-skilled workers in priority areas with labour market aligned competences, an area which has been for long complained about by employers due to the limited ability of graduates from the country’s higher education institutions.

“This project provides scholarships to instructors in universities who are interested in developing themselves in priority areas of the government with the aim of helping to bring about a revolution in their teaching,” said Prof Adolf Mkenda, the minister for Education, Science and Technology when launching the project yesterday.

He also said that the project was aimed at helping the construction of infrastructure including dormitories, classrooms, and conference halls as well as seeing 14 universities benefiting.

“There is also an allocation of $1.1 million for private universities for scholarships, they just need to know how to get that money to educate their lecturers because we have no reason to delay further,” he said.

“We are launching a project that is coming to push in the issues that have been talked about a lot in relation to our higher education provision, most of which have been focused on the negative side... our big job now is to make sure that we manage this project so that it goes as planned,” he added.

In this regard, the universities’ Senates together with the leadership of various institutions of higher education have been tasked to ensure the merger project aimed at bringing about an economic revolution via the provision of quality higher education is successful within the set time frame.

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Being the principal decision making organs in all matters pertaining higher education, Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU), Higher Education Students Loans Board (HESLB) and Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (costech) have all it takes to transform the sector.

“We must make sure that we converge on the high criteria for the provision of higher education rather than reducing the criteria for high admission... We must get to a place where we can compete with big foreign universities,” said Prof Mkenda.

According to the World Bank’s country director, Ms Preeti Arora, by 2030, 1.6 million youth will be entering the labour market annually in Tanzania, thus substantial and smart investment in the personal and economic vitality of this generation will be required…

She said even though the country has made efforts that have led to improvements in life expectancy, infant mortality, primary and secondary school enrolment rates, there were still important challenges that remained to sustain growth and development, notably the shortage of high-skilled workers.

“HEET project, which targets 14 priority areas for Tanzania’s economic growth, will help to address this critical need for high-skilled workers prepared for the labour market of both today and the future,” she noted.

The project is also expected to give rise to a modern, effective, efficient and resilient higher education sector where at least 100, 000 students are set to benefit from interventions to enhance learning with over 40 percent of those beneficiaries being female.

“Fourteen higher education institutions will be supported to become high quality centres of learning…the capacity of the ministry and its subsidiary agencies-TCU, COSTECH and HESLB will be strengthened to better manage the higher education system,” she expounded

The project introduces several innovations including employing creative funding mechanisms through the use of institution-specific strategic investment plans.

It will as well strengthen the enabling environment for commercialisation of research and innovation through the introduction of revolving funds, establishment of technology transfer facilities and support for management of intellectual property rights.

“The project will support the development of new and branch campuses in rural areas across the country, to bring institutions of higher-quality learning to where people live,” noted Dr Francis Michael who is  the ministry’s permanent secretary.

The project would also support interventions related to climate as well as create stronger links with industry and the private sector to ensure that graduates have the relevant skills for the job market.

The realisation of the HEET project development objective of the project will be through the implementation of three components including strengthening the learning environments and labour market alignment of priority programmes which will use $339 million of the initial funding.

Others are strengthening management of the higher education system ($78 million) project coordination and management ($8 million).