AfricaPress-Tanzania: THERE is a saying which goes: ‘Knowledge is power’.
It is education which imparts knowledge to learners and the more persons learn, the more knowledge they acquire and the more informed they become.
In Tanzania, since the first phase of government, education has been one of the priority sectors without which we cannot have experts in various sectors of the economy and hardly can we develop as a country and nation.
One of the areas the government has invested in is the creation of an enabling learning and teaching environment so that both trainers and trainees or pupils/students and teachers work in an environment they can really deliver.
After President John assumed power in 2015, one of the things he announced he would do was to ensure Tanzanian children, starting from primary school to Form IV, received free education and this has been implemented to the extent that some parts of the country had to construct more schools to cope with a spiralling number of registered schoolchildren.
At this stage, the government had to plan well how to accommodate all those who had passed their primary school national examinations.
So, we can say the government has recorded roaring success in the intake of schoolchildren and make sure every child who has reached the age of going to school does so and it has also addressed school dropouts due to early marriage, pregnancy or any other reasons. All this is attributed to free education.
On Friday, President Magufuli outlined the fifth phase government’s achievements in the sector of education in the past five years.
He said between 2015 and 2020 his government had spent at least 1.01tri/- on the provision of free education up to Form IV.
He spoke of this at the Tanzania Teachers’ Union (TTU) annual general meeting where he was the guest of honour. He spent some time commending teachers for their untiring efforts to provide education in the country.
He also hinted on what the government was doing to boost their teaching morale, including promoting them, settling their arrears and paying them their salaries even when the government had announced the temporary closure of schools, colleges and universities due to the global coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
We commend President Magufuli for boosting the teachers’ morale and it is through this that they too will deliver and meet public expectations, thanks to the provision of quality education.
We believe that what they outlined as their remaining challenges will be addressed in due time.
