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Study to revive sinking status of varsities
2008-03-05 09:04:49
By LUSEKELO PHILEMON
Institutions of higher learning in the Sub Saharan Africa are overwhelmed by the influx of students whereby limited resources and facilities result into poor products.
Graduates from the region`s universities fail to withstand the current global market competition.
Eastern and Southern African Universities Research Programme (Esaurp) is set to dig deep through intensive research in a bid to come up with long-lasting solutions.
In the early sixties, the public held great respect for graduates from universities in and outside the country.
The respect was genuine as most graduates were very competent and ably delivered to the nation.
They were shining examples not only of academic excellence but also of quality professionalism.
There were many factors behind the success stories success stories but the most important ones were the availability of appropriate teaching and learning environment.
Teaching staffs were able to reach students` expectations, due to the commitment they had in their work.
The staff/student ratio was also at an acceptable level with the result that the teaching staff was not overburdened.
However, the situation has been changing for the worse over the years with the rising number of students exerting pressure on the lecturers as well as the facilities available in the universities.
Limited resources, facilities and teaching staffs that do not matching with the spiraling students population have impacted heavily o the quality of the graduates from the institutions of higher learning in the region.
The region`s universities have dilapidated physical infrastructures that can`t accommodate student`s increasing demands.
The demand for university education in developing countries like Tanzania has been growing very rapidly with little efforts to expand and improve the dilapidated infrastructures.
At the University of Dar es Salaam, for example, it`s common to see students sitting on the floor, in the lecture theatres.
One course at the university can hardly accommodate more than 500 students at once.
These theatres therefore are not enough as the number of students may go up to more than 500.
In the 1990s Tanzania, like any other country, witnessed rampant increase of public and private universities.
The quest for university education from the growing population accounted for this situation.
Global market trends are also behind the situation, whereby the demand for human capital has increased rapidly.
Private universities, for instance, have been established for commercial ventures, leaving aside issues like quality and instead focusing on the quantity of students.
This is due to the fact that most of the time these universities lack essential facilities that would make them meet international standards.
The newly established universities face a problem in teaching sciences, medicine and technology thus offering tutorials mainly in commerce, business and social sciences, while mainstream science, medicine and technology studies has remained in public universities.
The Vice Chancellor at the University of Dodoma Prof Idris Kikula, expresses his fear over the limited capacities of the universities in Tanzania and perhaps the entire region.
He says Tanzania has the lowest enrollment of students in higher education hence a lot needs to be done.
Prof. Kikula says his university intends to enroll about 40,000 students by 2010.
``The problem is that the teaching and learning environment has not yet improved to cater for that skyrocketing student population,`` he says, adding that a lot has to be done to normalize the situation, which he says ``is getting out of hand.``
``Improvement of primary and secondary education doesn\'t go hand in hand with improvement of higher learning institutions,`` he adds.
Experts warn that the situation could lead to most universities in the region producing half-cooked graduates who cannot withstand the competitive global labour market.
Collective efforts are needed to deal with the problem that requires every individual country to conduct a study in order to find solutions to the problem.
ESAURP is therefore set to engineer the regional study, which is aimed at unearthing the extent of the problem in the region and come up with strategies to deal with the problem.
This will be the second study after the one conducted in 1987, when ESAURP published a ground-breaking survey of university capacity in the region that covered 14 countries and 18 universities.
The study intends to ensure provision of sustainable development of higher education systems in the region as well as widening access to quality higher education.
This is due to the fact that for almost ten years universities in Eastern African countries have become incoherent and failed to produce competent products.
The context in which universities are operating has also changed in terms of economic and political development priorities and regional integration.
ESAURP overview report indicates that the products from these universities can not withstand the rapidly changing world.
The Chairman of the organization\'s Advisory Council, Prof Rwekaza Mukandala, says that the problem has made the sector unable to provide sufficient high level training to enable the ambitious economic policies, which every government has developed to be put fully into practice.
``It is high time public universities reassessed their capacity to meet both national needs for higher education and the means by which they can operate collectively to address gaps and inadequacies,`` Prof. Mukandala says.
He suggests notes ``There is an urgent need for universities to conduct researches on their performances. It has now been thirty years ever since such researches were conducted.``
According to Esaurp, the scope of the survey will include the present and potential provision of higher education and research by private sector and by non-university research institutions.
The outgoing Esaurp Council Chairman, Prof. Phinius Makhurane, says that the strength of the region`s university research programme since its inception has been both of a highly scholarly standard and has been of direct use to governments, political parties and more so by institutions of higher learning.
He adds that for many years the organization has been used as a vehicle of socio-economic development across the region as its research findings have been applied by policy and decision making bodies in the region.
UNESCO representative, Cecilia Barbieri, is optimistic that efforts that would be taken by Esaurp will come up with quality researches and publications that could be used as a roadmap towards improving the quality of university education in the region.
She says that contribution would lead to a better informed policy debate and human development.
``The study is timely as it provides an educational response to the ethical challenges facing higher education in an era of globalization,`` Barbieri says, adding: ``For this reason UNESCO acknowledges the importance of updating the survey on university capacity.``
Esaurp was established in 1979 as a research organization jointly owned by twelve national universities in eastern and southern Africa.
It was designed to affect a policy- focused research, advocacy and training agenda on issues of current human resource concern.
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