Teach students to compete in labour market, govt told

Dar es Salaam. The Big Results Now (BRN) initiative being implemented in education will only make students learn how to pass examinations rather than prepare them to compete in the labour market, a lecture has cautioned.

Dr Kitila Mkumbo of the Dar es Salaam University College of Education told reporters on the sidelines of a stakeholders’ forum in the city yesterday to discuss ways of improving education that the initiative should be well implemented.

“The BRN initiative is good, but the problem is that our children will be learning how to pass examinations and not how to compete in the labour market,” he said.

Prof Alphonce Kyessi of Ardhi University said education was a crosscutting issue which required the involvement of all stakeholders.

He said Tanzania’s education system was not preparing students to compete. He spoke of only 20 per cent of the university graduates who get employed every year.

He added that the aim of the meeting was to advise the government on how to strengthen the education system. The BRN initiative was taken from the Malaysian Book titled ‘Big Fast Results’.

It is part of Malaysia’s government. BRN, described as a “fast-track people-centred growth ‘marathon”, focuses on six priority areas articulated in the Tanzania National development Vision 2025 and the Presidential Delivery Bureau (PDB) is mandated to rapidly follow through national key result areas from it.

But PDP CEO Omari Issa was quoted two months ago as saying the inadequacy of experts to execute projects under the BRN initiative was hindering its implementation.