Boost education quality or Tanzania is doomed

Friday, 13 April 2012 09:53

Source: The Citizen Tanzania

A nation is an intelligent entity – it is capable of making choices, determine its direction and plan its betterment. Priority number one for any living entity is survival. Intelligent entities transcend this goal by striving not only to survive but also to do so well.

A nation cannot achieve this goal if it ignores education. This is the sector that shapes and sharpens national intelligence.

The government has, over time, put remarkable efforts to increase enrolment and improve the quality of education. In this financial year, for instance, education budget was increased by 11.68 per cent to Sh2,283 billion, being equal to 16.9 per cent of the total national budget.

However, the government, on its own, cannot accomplish what is required to attain the desirable levels education in terms of quality and quantity.

Let us do a bit of soul-searching: As parents and guardians, how much attention have we accorded the education of our children?

How much support do we offer to local schools – in terms of advice, follow-up of academic development of our children? Are we close enough to our children’s teachers? Do we buy books for our children’s extra- classroom reading?

Are school committees doing enough in the schools they supervise? Do we grasp the fact that without offering our young quality education, we shall lose the war against poverty?

Does it make sense that we pour lots of money into weddings, send-off parties, first Holy Communion ceremonies and even funerals while we neglect buying books for our young?

Can we see that the shameless exploitation of our natural resources by foreigners linked to fact that we haven’t invested enough in the education of our own people to enable so that they take charge of their country’s affairs?

Our neglect of the education sector has multiple effects: lack employable youth, poorly skilled personnel, half-baked managers and leaders, bad policies and laws, decaying industries – you name it.

Let’s do everything possible to improve the quality of education in Tanzania, from primary school to university, otherwise, we are doomed a nation