Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE government has vowed to strengthen practical training in public higher learning institutions in the next five years to sharpen graduates’ skills for the job market.
Director of Higher Education in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Dr Keneth Hosea, assured this during the general meeting of the Tanzania Higher Learning Institutions Students’ Organisation (Tahliso) in Dar es Salaam at the weekend.
Dr Hosea noted that the strengthening practical training was part of many plans the government wanted to implement during the next five years of second term of President John Magufuli as highlighted in the CCM’s 2020-25 election manifesto.
Other plans include increasing human resources and addressing challenges in receiving foreign students. However, he said, during the last five years the country’s higher education system had recorded great strides.
Among other things, universities have introduced new programmes, as the number of programmes has increased from 645 in 2019/20 to 686 in 2020/21 and budget allocation for loans to students has also increased.
For his part, the Tahliso chairman said Tahliso had addressed various challenges facing students in some universities, including the University of Dodoma (Udom), the Institute of Finance Management (IFM) and others.
Despite those achievements, he said, students were still facing challenges in getting their loans from the Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (Heslb) due to a poor financial electronic systems in universities, calling for improvements in operating systems.
He further noted that lack of hostels to accommodate students in some universities was also a challenge, particularly for those situated in city centres.
Female students have also been facing sexual harassment in universities, something which makes some of them fail to finish their studies.
The Tahliso general meeting in the city, sponsored by the National Insurance Company (NIC), was also attended by different government institutions, including Heslb and the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).
NIC Director of Marketing and Customer Services Yesaya Mwakifulefule said NIC intended to ensure all students got insurance cover from NIC.
“NIC is a major stakeholder of Tahliso and students at large because they are our future leaders and decision makers,” Mr Mwakifulefule noted.
On the other hand, NHIF said it had come up with a programme to ensure all students had a health insurance cover to access health services at any time they needed it.
Christopher Mapunda, an official from NHIF, noted that the programme would include students without any health insurance cover.
