Education sees positive changes

Dar es Salaam. The end of the year is slightly over 24 hours away. Many things have been done-- both positive and negative.

The government has been striving to ensure all social services are available for majority of Tanzanians.

However, not every effort has borne fruit, but education is among the sectors that have seen positive changes. It is the only sector that has been widely discussed on various platforms.

The sector has scored high in four main areas, according to education stakeholders. Strictness of improving the quality of higher education as well as increased primary and secondary schools enrolments say it all.

Speaking to The Citizen on different occasions, various players in the sector mentioned five issues that transformed education in the country.

Increased number of first year students who received loans from the Higher Education Student’s Loans Board (Heslb) and timely disbursement of the loans have been some of the issues, which have won the heart of wananchi this year.

Nonetheless, suspending 19 universities from admitting new students for the academic year 2017/18 by the Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU) was bad news.

This went together with a countrywide exercise to identify and sack civil servants with fake certificates as Heslb also intensified its efforts to recover loans from defaulters.

Loans beneficiaries rise

Stakeholders have lavished praise on the Heslb for their efforts to recover the loans, a move that also helped increase the number of students who are entitled to the loans.

In this financial year (2017/18), the ministry of Education, Science and Technology allocated a budget of Sh427.5 billion for 122,623 students including 30,000 freshers and 92,623 continuing beneficiaries.

The number of new beneficiaries has significantly increased by almost 5,000 from 25,717, who received the loans last year.

“It was good to see that the money was disbursed on time following the directive of President John Magufuli who wanted the students to be paid as soon as they begin studies,” said an associate researcher on social affairs, Dr Aidan Msafiri.

One year after President Magufuli took up the reins, loan disbursement was not going as planned until when Prof Joyce Ndalichako, minister for Education, Science and Technology intervened by directing Heslb to immediately release the money for all undergraduate students.

Prof Ndalichako expressed his satisfaction on government’s measures taken by higher education regulator, TCU, to increase supervision and control of quality of higher education through an audit whose findings led to the suspension of 19 colleges and other 75 programmes in 22 universities were barred from admitting new students.

Disbursement of loans

The university students had all reasons to smile this year as the money was disbursed on time unlike the previous years which witnessed demonstrations due to the pay delay.

This came after the head of state instructed the ministry of Education Science and Technology to ensure that all eligible students who were in the list of loans recipients got their money on time.

The implementation of this directive went successfully because all colleges opened on the same day, October 30, according to the calendar issued by the higher education regulator.

By October 20, the government had already approved Sh147 billion to be paid in the first batch, to ensure that all the eligible beneficiaries received their money well before the start of the academic year.

As the universities were set to open from October 30, Heslb was well-prepared to ensure that funds for the beneficiaries were disbursed timely and in full to enable them to cater of academic year’s needs.

“The President said he would be surprised if the money did not reach the beneficiaries on time because of some unscrupulous people who deposit it in fixed bank accounts,” he said.

“This was so touching to see even the head of state was concerned about challenges and long-time grievances,” said Dr Msafiri.

Mr Geofrey Ndimbo, a high school teacher in Moshi district, Kilimanjaro region, said they still remember that last year a number of students could not receive their loans on time.

“There were complaints from some students on delays of disbursement of their loans by the board, but this time around things have really changed,” he said.

Barred universities

On July 24, TCU announced shocking news which saw 19 colleges and 75 programmes from 22 universities being banned from admitting new students for not meeting the academic requirements.

The decision hurt both private and public institutions that were identified to have irregularities including the Universities of Dar es Salaam and Dodoma.

Players have given the nod to the move, suggesting that there were no clear mechanism to control the quality of education, something which led to production of a lot of incompetent graduates.

Commenting on the new development Dr Msafiri said the decision has to some extent helped to restore the quality of high education offered in the country, adding that the government should put more efforts to ensure that local institutions enter the list of world class universities in a near future.

Fake certificates

In April, at least 9,900 civil servants were fired after a countrywide crackdown on academic certificates. It came following an order by President Magufuli late last year.

Among others, the report also revealed that over 1,500 civil servants were using similar credentials while 11,500 had fake academic records.

Receiving a report from the then Minister of state, President’s office Public Services Management and Good Governance Ms Angela Kairuki, Dr Magufuli ordered that all holders of bogus certificates be removed from government payroll.

Recovery of loans

Heslb made a great stride in recovering loans from defaulters. The defaulters from the 1990s were tracked and started paying.

The Loans board Executive Director, Mr Abdul-razaq Badru said the board targeted to recover Sh130 billion and until November it had already collected over Sh80 billion.