UDSM's pledge on development in the next 60 years
What you need to know:
- This was as stated IDS marked the 60th anniversary of the University of Dar es Salaam alongside its [IDS] 49 years since it was established in 1973
Dar es Salaam. The University of Dar es Salaam’s Institute of Development Studies (IDS) yesterday vowed to ensure that its development-oriented research findings reach members of society and policy makers so that they can become key to Tanzania’s transformation.
This was stated separately when IDS was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the University of Dar es Salaam alongside its [IDS] 49 years since it was opened in 1973.
“In the next 60 years, we have to ensure that our research contributes to societal growth. We will have to reach out to the people at the grassroots level and strive to engage policy makers so that we can achieve our responsibility as an institution,” Prof Bertha Koda, a veteran lecturers at IDS told The Citizen.
The institute was created to serve, among others, as a development think tank, to advise the government on various issues on development. “Findings have been established and recommendations made in the past 50 years. We advised professionally but most have not been taken into account by policy makers,” she noted.
In order to bring productivity and efficiency of their department to Tanzania as a whole, she noted that they must also get out of classroom lectures and go to the people to hear what they understand on matters related to development to help advise further decision makers.
“Now, as a university, we must have strategies to help in sharing the answers of our research with the people and political leaders so that together we can enhance professionalism in speeding up our country’s development,” she said.
On the other hand, IDS was instructed to come up with strategies in finding out solutions to the challenges that graduates from other disciplines faced after they graduated.
As an interdisciplinary field of research and teaching that takes ‘development’ as its central concern, and given the government’s call for production of competent graduates, the institution needed to help students in other disciplines understand matters development before they graduate.
“It’s your task as IDS to find out the challenges that graduates from other disciplines face when they graduate, so that you can facilitate achievement of the government’s desire,” said the director of Undergraduate Studies at UDSM, Prof Nelson Boniface.
For his part, the director of IDS, Dr Colman Msoka said through alumni, lecturers, professionals and people with various occupations in development, they received ideas on how to further improve their curriculum.
“This is to ensure that we do not run out of time, but we provide training that is relevant and goes with the times in today’s world...,” he said.
“In this meeting, we have invited development experts from various countries such as Indonesia, whose countries have made great progress in the past 60 years, the goal is for us to learn and improve,” he said.
