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Tertiary education still top priority
2007-05-14 08:43:31
By Editor
At long last, the latest crisis at the University of Dar es Salaam seems to have come to an end.
The management has announced that except for 56 alleged ringleaders of the strike, all students will be allowed to report at the main campus today.
The management has also reported that 6,617 out of 15,840 students have been able to meet the stringent conditions of depositing 40 per cent of their education costs with the banks prior to the set deadline.
This means that over 58 percent were unable to pay the 40 percent of tuition fee and contribute 100,000/- to medical charges.
Much has been said and done over the past few weeks in regard to the tug of war that was happening at the Hill.
However, what is more important for both the students and the university management is to look to the future and strive at making the University of Dar es Salaam a centre of excellence.
We hope the administration shall not preoccupy itself with witch hunting. What is more important is to set the machinery in place once again and restore a true academic atmosphere.
It has to be borne in mind that suspending students is a costly affair, although it is not known yet how much the brief closure of country's prime centre of learning has the cost.
The announcement made by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam on the readmission of suspended students clearly indicates that the administration has adopted a flexible attitude by allowing even those who have failed to raise the required money to resume classes.
And, reading in between the lines, the VC's statement that the university will listen to all the 56 students who will not be re-admitted today sends a message that there is still a slightly opened door for each and everybody.
At the centre of the whole crisis is the student loan scheme, which is seen by many students as too difficult for those from poor families.
Indeed, there is an on-going debate in the developing countries on the viability of student loan schemes.
This is due to the fact that there is no single blue print which is suitable for all countries.
There is also the lurking question whether the majority of students in poor countries can really repay the loans.
Whatever the answer, having a successful student loan agency needs sustained commitment by the government to the goal of expanding access to tertiary education to all its citizens.
With our recent experiences in Tanzania, there could be a need to widen the scope of funding the student loan programme.
The bursary can come from not only the government but also from companies in the productive sector, National Lottery, philanthropists, international agencies and bank loans.
That done, what will make the whole thing succeed is effective loan management and plugging of all loopholes for fraud, misappropriation and nepotism. In addition, timely remittances are also crucial.
We therefore hope that all the parties involved in the recent saga: the government, the university administration and students--will see the need to review the on-the-ground situation such that a long lasting solution shall be found.
We should not be bogged down such that we slow down our pace of increasing university enrollment.
We are living in the 21st Century. We either expand our tertiary education base or perish.
Let us all agree that there is no short cut to this endeavor.
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