Author: ABELA MSIKULA
AfricaPress-Tanzania: DIFFERENT stakeholders in the education sector have showered President John Magufuli with praise following his splendid improvements in the area, citing free education initiative that picked up.
Praising the head of State in the programme, the National Chairperson for Tanzania Association of Managers and Owners of non-government Schools and Colleges (TAMONGSCO), Mr Leonard Mao, said his first term in office registered remarkable achievement, where a number of Tanzanians who lacked writing and reading skills improved a lot.
In a phone interview yesterday, the Chairperson said that the initiative also played a great role in increasing the number of Class One pupils’ registrations in schools by 2 million every year to the present since he ascended to power.
“A number of those who had no writing and reading skills have dropped to about 70 per cent. The rest (30 per cent) are those who never want to go school.
“There are also remarkable improvements in schools’ infrastructures, including availability of classrooms, desks and laboratories, and we also have even laboratories in rural Ward schools.
“There is thorough supervision in the sector, including in the National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA) that is now strict and monitors examination cheating in this fifth phase administration,” he pointed out.
On his part, Tanzania Private Schools Teachers’ Union (TPTU) Executive Secretary, Mr Julius Malaba said the same free education initiative triggered literacy in the country.
However, he urged the government to consider applying the same initiative in Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) so as to encourage among other things, knowledge sharing in the students’ population.
He noted that the private investor should feel free and support the government in realising its goal that at the end of the day serves all nationals in improving education in the country.
