Speech by the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, H.E. Benjamin William Mkapa, at the University of Dar Es Salaam, Nkrumah Hall, 16 February 1999

Chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam,
Ambassador Paul Bomani;

Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education,
Hon. Dr. Pius Y. Ng'wanda, MP;

Chairman of the University Council,
Ambassador Fulgance Kazaura;

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam,
Prof. Matthew Luhanga;

Faculty Deans and Heads of Department;

Academic and Non-Academic Staff;

Students;

Ladies and Gentlemen;

Good Afternoon;

Three years and some months have passed since I was elected, by a solid majority, to be the third President of the United Republic of Tanzania. If you were to ask me what has preoccupied me most during this time I would say: the economy, the economy, the economy.

I now believe I have laid the foundation for a sustainably growing economy; I have visited almost the whole country to get the people behind a new thrust for self-determined and self-executed development. I have reaffirmed Tanzania's central role in our part of the world, including strengthening amicable relations and regional co-operation with our neighbours; and I have visited key bilateral development partners, firming up and locking in their enhanced support and that of multilateral financial institutions towards debt relief and development funding.

Having completed these preliminary matters of my Presidency, I thought the appropriate time had now come to touch base with the community of the University of Dar es Salaam.

Let me say at the outset that I attach a lot of importance to today's encounter, and future one I hope will take place, for several reasons:

• Firstly, The University of Dar es Salaam is the largest and oldest university in our country. It has trained, and continues to train, the majority of the people in top and middle level leadership positions in the public and private sectors; even in political parties. Whatever plans I have for this country, therefore their successful implementation will depend on the quality and capacity of the people trained here. So it is important that you and I get into an early understanding on the quality and relevance of your product to the vision I have for our country

• Secondly, having successfully sold and defended our policies and priorities to the ordinary people across the country, it should be much easier to discuss the theory, practice and imperatives embodied in our policy framework with the people inhabiting this most learned village in our country so that you can team up with me and my government to ensure their successful implementation;

• Thirdly, the university being the collector, distiller, repository and dispenser of knowledge is an important partner to the government in applying this knowledge to the objective analysis of the national challenges in terms of policies, governance, socio-economic development, sustainable growth, prioritisation and sequencing of development actions; and providing objective prescriptions and predictions; and

• Fourthly, depending on how staff and students position and carry themselves in relation to important national issues, they could be a source of strength or a destabilising factor at the very time when the nation needs to stand together to create a peaceful and better future for ourselves, and for our progeny. I trust that this encounter will contribute to better mutual understanding that will strengthen rather than dilute relations between our government and our university.

The Economy and Higher Education
Mr. Chancellor,
The first matter I want to address is the relationship between the national economy and education - any education - but especially higher education. I do so because I have a feeling - rightly or wrongly - that the critical link between the two has yet to receive the attention it deserves. In a country like ours, in which we do not want people to miss opportunities for higher education simply because they cannot afford to pay the full cost of education, the state will continue to shoulder a substantial part of the burden of educating its human resource.

But education, any education, is an expensive investment whose returns take years to be seen. Just ask the parents who send their children to private kindergatten, primary and secondary schools or private universities. Here at this university, I am told the full cost for a degree course can exceed 5 million shillings a year depending on the course. Add 100 more students and you need an extra Shs.500 million, enough to build two new day secondary schools.

I give this example to illustrate the point that financing education involves a lot of hand choices; choices on very basic issues. There is no way we can improve the quality of output at higher institutions of learning without improving first performance at lower echelons of our education system. And this costs money to train and retrain teachers, and pay them better; to acquire books and other teaching aids, to improve teacher-student ratios, and so on. If the government were, for example, to employ 5,000 additional teachers at a monthly salary of Shs.50,000/=, that will add upto to Shs.2.5 billion a year, or almost 10% of the entire 1998/99 budget of the Ministry of Education and Culture! For your information we expect that in next three years we will ned an extra 5,842 new secondary school teachers.

We live at a time of very difficult choices in the face of huge urgent and competing demands on insufficient resources. Sometimes the choice is truly between a rock and a hard place. It is easy for everyone to demand more resources for the social or economic sector of concern to him or her. But for me and the Minister of Finance, who have to try and make an optimal balance among competing and valid demands on the national coffers, the choices are truly agonising.

I understand when you ask for more financial resources for the university for teaching and research activities, for books, and so on, and rightly so. I would have done the same thing myself had I been in your shoes. But within the tight budget framework in which the government operates, increased funding in one sector means less resources for another sector. It is a zero-sum game. One wins, the other loses.

The solution I propose to your problems and those in other sectors may not satisfy you if you want an immediate miracle, for I have none. The only sustainable solution I have, is to bring about consistent, rapid and sustainable economic growth. That is why I said my top priority in the last three years has been the economy. For an erudite community like this, I do not have to belabour the point too much. So I will take you quickly through the policy issues concerned, the results attained so far, and our realistic expectations in the near future.

Mr. Chancellor,
When you are poor the first natural thing you do is to use the little resources you have most carefully and judiciously. So among the first measures my government took on coming to power was to increase efforts at revenue collection, structuring our tax regime, including introducing VAT, and running the government on a cash budget basis. I have said it before, and I have to repeat, that we have more than doubled tax revenues in the last three years, from a monthly average of about Shs.28 billion to almost Shs.60 billion now. Contrary to fears borne of the experiences of other countries, we launched the Value Added Tax last year very smoothly.

As a result, we have managed to narrow budgetary deficits and improve government recurrent savings from - 2.7% of GDP in 1994/95 fiscal year, to 1% last year. We have also reduced inflation from 27% in October 1995 to 12% now. The effect of reduced inflation on prices is clear, and the lesson has been learnt even among ordinary people that the most important thing is the purchasing power of our currency, not the amount of money in our pockets or socks!

The second natural thing for a poor man to do is to seek out friends who can help him not only to survive the present, but to build a capacity for growth and self-reliance in the future. This also includes asking for debt relief. But to do so two things were important. Firstly to show a serious determination to take whatever painful measures necessary to engender sustainable growth. Secondly, to concede our indebtedness by accepting the bligation to pay by actually beginning to service at least some of those debts.
I know I have been accused, even on this campus, of spending too much time on macro-economic issues and paying foreign debts at the expense of social services. You are learned people, and I ask you: What would you do if you were in my position when over 96% of the 1998/99 development budget is financed through grants and loans? Clearly, the development and nurturing of good relations with donors and creditors is of paramount importance' without compromising on our national interests. Unless we adopt prudent fiscal polices, even those social services you want me to protect by ignoring donors and creditors will collapse because they also depend heavily on foreign funding. Therefore, until our economy reaches the stage where we can on our own meet a large part of our recurrent and development budget, it is foolhardy to even contemplate an arrogant or dismissive attitude towards the IMF, the World Bank and bilateral donors and creditors.

But our short term sacrifices have produced long-term benefits; they were not in vain. I will give a few examples. In 1995, Tanzania was in such bad books with donors and International Financial Institutions that we could hardly borrow, and aid was declining rapidly. After reforming our fiscal and monetary policies and performance, and improving the servicing of our external debt, we now get new loans and bilateral grants on which this university also depends, especially for its research programmes. Only one week ago the IMF approved the third annual loan for Tanzania under the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) amounting to $82 million to support our 1998/99 programme.

Mr. Chancellor,
Let us look at some the numbers from a historical point of view. I came to power during the 1994/95 financial year. In that year, total external assistance we received was $755.9 million. Last financial year, this had risen by 46% to $1,104.8 million over a three year period. This year, 1998/99, total external assistance is projected to reach $1,296.6 million. True, increasing volumes of assistance are not something to be proud of. I would be the first one to be happy the day we will not need aid and soft loans. But the truth is that as of now we need aid and concessional credits before we can stand on our own feet, and the increasing levels of aid and credits is a sign of external confidence in our policies and our determination to lift ourselves out of poverty.

To appreciate the value of these levels of external assistance to our economy, let us see how they relate to our export revenues on which we would have to rely on if there was no forthcoming external assistance. In 1994/95 our merchandise exports (fob) were worth $592.9, which was only 78.4% of the external assistance we received that year of $755.9 million. Last year, 1997/98, our merchandise exports were worth $644.9 million, a mere 58.4% of the external assistance worth $1,104.8 million we received. If the 1998/99 projections are met, our own exports will be a pitiful 52% of total external assistance.
We survive on a lifeline of grants and loans and the challenge before us is not how to distribute poverty but to focus on economic growth that will help us wean ourselves out of this level of dependence. I thought I could have your support on this, and I challenge anyone to come up with an alternative framework and strategy to bridge the yawning gap between our exports and our requirements for imports. Where else could we raise the $1.3 billion we will receive this financial year in grants and credits in external recognition and support for the proper and prudent management of our economy? What credible alternatives do our detractors have? I assure you they have none whatsoever.

In addition, and in recognition of our efforts to repay our debts, in January 1997 we received debt relief amounting to$1.1 billion. Last year, we established a Multilateral Debt Fund to help us service our debts to multilateral creditors, with the resultant budgetary savings going to improving social services namely education, health and water. As a result this financial year these critical sectors are receiving assured levels of budgetary allocations, and they have sold donor support for the coming years. All this would not have been possible if we had not accepted the challenge to manage our economy well.

The prudent management of our economy, the macro-economic stability we have created, along with investment incentives we have put in place, has finally put Tanzania on the tourist and investment map in several important sectors, including mining. As you may well recall, a couple of days ago I officially opened the first modern large-scale gold mine in Tanzania since independence at Nzega; and at least three more gold mines should come on stream in the next 2 - 3 years, regardless of the low gold prices on the world market.

The peace and political stability we have, in addition to an increasingly stabilising macro-economic framework, and a good investment climate, has resulted in steady increase in investments and slow but stable economic growth. In 1994/95 real GDP growth was 2.6. Since then, and despite adverse weather conditions, it has not gone below 3.4%. In 1995/96 it was 4.1%, in 1996/97 it was 4.0%, last financial year it was 3.4%, and this year our expectations are 4.3% against a world average of 1.3%. This has placed us for the first time ever among the 20 fastest growing economies in the world this year. Had it not been for El Nino and La Nina, I am sure we would have been among the 10 fastest growing economies in the world.

According to UNCTAD, in 1997 Tanzania was 7th in the special listing of 12 highest destinations of Foreign Direct Investment, receiving $250 million worth of investments. Only South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Angola had higher investments than Tanzania which tied with Uganda at $250 million. Last year 13% of Africa's total budget for prospecting for minerals came to Tanzania, higher than in either South Africa or Ghana. The Economist Intelligence Unit, which cannot be accused of beng soft on Tanzania, had this to say recently:

"Tanzania is potential winner. Long neglected by foreign investors, the country is now attracting sizeable inflows of foreign capital,…"

Mr. Chancellor,
Investment that produces sustainable economic growth is the key to improved welfare of the people, and the increase in social sector spending, including higher education. For, even if it were easy to determine priorities, and identify higher education for an increased share of the government budget, or of the Gross National Product, the actual sum available will remain miniscule if the budget or the GNP does not increase.

A small percentage of a large sum is larger than a large percentage of a small sum. So the question is not so much the proportion of our budget or of our GNP, that goes to education, or health, or water, or roads; but rather the size of the GNP and hence the size of the budget. This is the explanation for my concentration on the economy, an explanation I would expect to be accepted here, at the Hill, easily than among the rural people of Tanzania. Education and the economy are linked, we should not try to separate them or ignore the vital and critical connection and interdependence between the two.

The Need to Improve Primary and Secondary Education
Mr. Chancellor,
The need to increase funding for higher education must be weighed against the need for more resources to expand, in an egalitarian manner, access to improved primary and secondary education. Unless we can do so, there will be fewer qualified students for matriculation in tertiary education, including girls. We must as quickly as possible move away from the present position where we have to give supplementary tuition to enable applicants qualify to enrol in our higher institutions of learning.

Let us, for a while look at the imperative for greater investment in lower levels of education. For a long time now there has been a public outcry, even on this campus, on the falling standards of education in Tanzania. Indeed, a number of indicators are used to prove this point. For instance, official literary rates have fallen from 90% in the mid 1980s to 84% last year. The Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) in primary schools has fallen from high 98% in the first half of the 1980s to 78% last year, while the Net Enrolment Rate (NER) has dropped from 71% to 57% over the same period. Large variations exist, however, between these national averages. In some communities GER's are less than 50% and NER is down to 30%. The national performance average during the 1997 primary school leaving examinations was veritably shocking. Only 20.13% of the students passed, and only 0.64% received "A" grade.

Then there is the question of culturally or historically disadvantaged groups which need special attention such as muslims and girls. In comparative terms, the academic performance of girls is on average 10 points lower at the end of primary school examinations terms restricting access to secondary education. At the 1997 primary school leaving examinations, of the 2,694 students that received the "A" grade, only 525 were girls, about 20% of the total "A" Passes. In Lindi and Mtwara regions, not a single girl got an "A". In secondary schools, only 2% of the girls achieved a Grade 1 rating compared to 10% for boys. These patterns undermine female confidence and access to high education and job opportunities, especially in science and technology fields.

I do not have comparative figures for the performance of muslim students, principally because I find it very difficult, almost anathema, to use religion as a basis for classification and analysis. I find it dangerously divisive. That is not how we have been brought to believe in this country. Yet, on a number of occasions, the last one being the Idd El Fitr Baraza, the government has been accused of actually blocking the advancement of muslims, including in the critical education sector. I do not know if you have at this University a mechanism to filter out muslim candidates; or if you have ever received instructions from the government to institute such a mechanism. The late Deng Xiaoping taught us to seek the truth from facts, and not otherwise. That is why upon being confronted with such allegations I expressed the desire of the government to engage representatives of the muslim community in a constructive dialogue that will help us, in a scientific manner, to derive the truth of reduced muslim representation in higher education from the facts, and then work in partnership to identify and deal with the real causes.

Mr. Chancellor,
If we are agreed on the imperative to improve lower levels of education, in an egalitarian manner, we need also to look at the cost implications in terms of investments in infrastructure; in teacher training and remuneration; in the quality, monitoring and evaluation of instruction.

My government's top priority is to urgently raise the standards of primary and secondary education so as, not only to restore public confidence in the country's education system, but also to have a quality product, capable of pursuing higher education with excellence, or being able in one way or the other to be employable, or able to employ themselves.

In translating the Education and Training Policy launched in 1995, an action oriented Basic Education Master Plan, (BEMP), was launched in 1997 to be followed up immediately by the Secondary Education Master Plan (SEMP). I will briefly describe what we have planned to do, and the cost implications involved. Then you will make up your own minds if we are on the right track or not.

The Basic Education Master Plan
The Basic Education Master Plan involves a 5 year programme, (1997-2002), costing $375 million (about Shs.225 billion), with four main components:

• 23% of this budget (Shs.54 billion) will go towards improving equitable access to primary education, thereby raising the Gross Enrolment rate to 85%. In addition, 10,000 classrooms will be repaired; and 10,000 new classrooms will be built in priority areas and 5,000 primary schools will receive clean water. We will also seek to improve retention rates among disadvantaged groups, including female and muslim students. As an incentive to disadvantaged students, a scholarship fund is on the cards to cater for about 250,000 students per year, 60% of the grants being directed to girls. In addition, arrangements will be made to give out-of-school complementary studies for school drop outs in age ranges 10 - 18 years, as well as adult literacy and post literacy training for disadvantaged groups with expected enrolment levels of 500,000 per year.

• 43% of the budget (Shs.96 billion) will go towards a quality improvement programme whose components include enhancing the Education Ministry's capacity for policy analysis, development evaluation and monitoring, especially for science and maths. A sustainable text book supply system will be established with a target of 1 book per student per grade by the year 2002. Additionaly, we will ensure optimum deployment of teachers by the end of the programme. In order to improve effectiveness of classroom instruction, rigorous inservice training of existing primary school teachers will be carried out.

• 8% of the budget (Shs.18 billion) will go towards strengthening planning, management and monitoring. Under this component, a legal regulatory framework for selective decentralisation will be put in place, as well as a National Education Management Information System(EMIS). The inspectorate and school advisory systems, as well as examination systems, will be rationalised and strenghthened. In addition, upto 17,000 headteachers and their deputies will be trained to strengthen school management and leadership.

• The last component which will take 26% of the budget (Shs.57 billion) will be a transitional programme of teaching service rationalisation to acieve an optimum utilisation of the teaching service through regulated staffing norms, including attaining ratios of 1 teacher per 45 pupils, and to ensure equitable access to better trained teachers.

Mr. Chancellor,
The Government believes that this Basic Education Master Plan is necessary and pragmatic, and it addresses basic education in its entirety - formal, out-of-school, and adult education. Necessary because as signatories to the Jomtien Declaration of 1990 we have committed ourselves to the principle of Education For All, and have made basic education a basic right for all the children of this country. Pragmatic because the successes in turning the economy around gives us the confidence that GDP growth can sustain the financing framework, and be able to increase budgetary allocations to the education sector to the desirable 25%, up from the current 21.6%, with 70% of this budget going to Basic Education.

I should also point out that to begin with a large component of the budget will be met by the donor community having satisfied themselves that it is practical and achievable. Furthermore, the plan strategies include the encouragement of private primary schools - with careful quality assurance and regulation - thereby increasing public/private sector partnership in providing basic education.

Secondary Education Master Plan
Mr. Chancellor,
Each year about half a million Tanzanian pupils sit for standard seven exams, but only about 35,000 - about 17% - are selected to join our secondary schools. This is a very low transition rate, which has a significant impact on the number and quality of students who qualify for tertiary education. The target of the Secondary Education Master Plan, therefore, is to raise the transition rate to 20% by the year 2002.

In terms of infrastructural development, the government will continue to call upon, and depend on, the revived self-help spirit of our people. In the last three years of my administration, local communities have built 157 new secondary schools, an average of 55 schools per year! Non-governmental organisations, especially religious organisations, are also an important partner in increasing the number of secondary schools. This of course puts greater demands on government resources in terms of teachers, teaching aids, and monitoring capacity.

For instance, in order to reach the 20% transition rate in both ordinary and advanced level secondary education, we will need to create 5506 new teaching posts at 'O' level to achieve a teacher student ratio of 2.5; and 336 new teaching posts at "A" level to achieve a teacher-student ratio of 2.3.

The cost implication for implementing the Secondary Education Master Plan is Shs.71.8 billion if they will all go to day schools, or Shs.101.6 billion if they all stay in boarding schools.

Mr. Chancellor,
I have discussed at considerable length the imperatives and challenges for improved basic and secondary education as a necessary condition for improved access to, and quality at, higher levels of education. I do not know if there is anyone among us who does not see this imperative, or is averse to bearing the burden of implementing the programmes we have designed. But they cost a lost of money: 363 billion shillings for basic education, and almost 100 billion shillings for secondary education.

And yet our economy needs also to increase funding in tertiary education, including the University of Dar es Salaam. I ask you to bear with us when we focus on building the foundations of a growing economy, and when we seek to derive an optimum balance between allocations to basic, secondary and higher education.

Teacher Employment and Welfare
Mr. Chancellor,
Before I address issues related specifically to the University of Dar es Salaam, let me say a few other things we have done in the last three years to improve teacher welfare, and recruit more teachers.

In October 1995, there were about 8,000 teachers whose salaries were uncertain because of computer complications. We solved that problem and today every teacher is not only on the payroll, but has a higher salary, promptly paid before the end of each month.

In October last year, the government lifted the ban on the employment of teachers and 3,653 new ones have been employed. When added to the 8,000 whose employment was regularised, this amounts in essence to 11,653 new teachers over the last three years. Another phase in the employment of teachers is on its way.

When my administration came to power thousands of teachers were frustrated due to delayed promotions. We worked on this problem and 22,000 teachers were promoted in 1996/97; 28,000 in 1997/99; and 39,500 in 1998/99. Other teachers had not been paid some of their non-salary entitlements for many years. In 1995 such unpaid entitlements amounted to Shs.1.164 billion. Since then Shs.635.6 million has been paid out. In November 1995 only 10 - 15% of primary school pupils were sitting on desks; today the national average is 95%.

But let me point out a problem we had last year in recruiting teachers. We had announced very that we will employ every graduate teacher, but to our surprise 40% of them wanted employment only on condition that they be posted in Dar es Salaam. That, of course, was an unacceptable condition for the government, and they declined to be employed by the government. This raises serious questions on the preparations they have received here. Having been trained at great expense by the government, they refused to teach anywhere else except Dar es Salaam. What would have happened to them if all teachers in the past had insisted on working only in Dar es Salaam?

Another problems is the shortage of graduate teachers in the sciences. The country is facing a critical shortage of science teachers, and I am not sure if the University of Dar es Salaam does as a matter of fact have a special drive to satisfy the current high demand for science teachers. There is a clear need for teacher education to be relevant to the needs of our schools today and tomorrow, and to be more sensitive to the market.

The Need for a New Partnership in Higher Education
Mr. Chancellor,
Having addressed the relationship between the economy and education, and having described the imperative and strategies to improve basic and secondary education in an egalitarian way, and having explained what we have accomplished so far, let me now zero in on specific policy issues related to tertiary education, with reference to the University of Dar es Salaam. Let me at the outset point out that from my experience as Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, I know most of the problems you face and which you may wish me to address. But I have deliberately decided to focus more on broad policy issues than on specific problem areas which I am sure the Minister responsible can respond to.

The first policy issue I want to address is on the need to forge a new national partnership for higher education. Historically, again for egalitarian purposes, the government had monopolised the provision and financing of education, including university education. But such a strategy can only be sustainable if the economy is growing rapidly and consistently. The truth is that for many years, since the late 70s, our economy stagnated and the donor funding that helped us put up the infrastructure for education upto the level of university began to dry up.

As a result, we witnessed underfunding of university programmes, deteriorating quality of university education and its product, and comparatively low enrolment ratios. To highlight the problem of underfunding, let us look at the trend over a ten year period, 1984/85 - 1995/96. In 1984/85 underfunding of the University of Dar es Salaam, measured as the magnitude of the shortfall between the university's own budget and the actual amount of funds given to the university by the government, was 4%. By 1994/95 it was a staggering 71%. Put differently in 1984/85 for every Shs.100 you asked for, you were given Shs.96. In 1995/95 for every Shs.100 you asked for, you were given Shs.29 only.

From 1995/96, the Third Phase Government has begun to reduce this shortfall, but let us face it, government alone cannot finance an expanding quality education in this country. We must create a new strategic partnership with all stakeholders: students and parents; the private sector; the community; the universities themselves; as well as bilateral and multilateral donor and funding agencies.

The government, naturally, has the primary duty to be the custodian and regulator of our education system. It has taken, and will continue to take, relevant policy measures and regulatory measures to:

• Increase direct funding to core teaching and research activities while de-emphasising assistance towards non-academic activities;

• Sustain an enabling environment for the private sector to establish and run universities, all the time ensuring educational quality and relevance to the country's development objectives;

• Provide support for the strategic plans adopted by the universities to enable them contribute effectively to the renewal of university education in Tanzania;

• Encourage donors to support higher education; and

• Streamline the students' loan scheme so that only those needy students qualify, as well as put in place the legal machinery for loan recoveries.

The universities, through their managements and academic staff, must on their part play a pro-active role in redefining the mission of their institutions, and revitalising their programmes and activities by:

• Formulating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating their strategic plans;

• Making optimal use of existing facilites throughout the year in order to enhance enrollment rates, and to generate more income;

• Taking maximum advantage of the governments' resolve to use university for contracted research or consultancies in order to raise more funds while at the same time contributing to internal capacity building;

• Increasing teaching and research capacities in selected academic spheres that are vital for Tanzanians; and

• Reviewing and updating the curricula offered so that it becomes relevant to the changing economic, technological and labour market needs of Tanzania.

Students and their parents, by contributing toward the cost of university education through cost-sharing, will improve educational quality and relevance and will enhance enrollment rates. For, where students pay something for their education, they are bound to pressurise the academicians and administrators to be more accountable; and they are bound to take their studies even more seriously.

Used realistically and for more services, cost-sharing will ease the pressure on public resources to be spent on supportive activities. The public resources so saved, will then be concentrated on teaching and research, the main mission of the university.

The private sector can, and should, contribute to the revitalisation of university education by:

• Opening quality universities that offer courses which are relevant to Tanzanian's social and economic priorities;

• Financing research and awarding contract consultancies to our own universities;

• Practising corporate philanthropy through award of scholarships and funding of professorial chairs;

• Establishing student loan schemes and education endowment funds; and

• Striking a healthy and mutually supportive working partnership with local universities.

The community, in its diverse forms, has also a vital role to play in enhancing the quality of education and enrollment rates. We are still working on proposals to establish an education levy to which all members of the community will directly or indirectly contribute. Local governments and co-operatives can also help by offering scholarships and loans to students.

The donor community on its part need to support Tanzania's combined efforts to revamp university education through funding university education as a legitimate instrument for Tanzania's overall development and assisting with the implementation of the universities' strategic plans.

The Role of Distance Education
Mr. Chancellor,
We all know that distance education is much cheaper than conventional education, putting minimum demands as it does on infrastructure and staff size, and instead focussing on tuition and delivery. With the current fast developments in information technology, distance education can reach more people in a shorter period of time than conventional education, giving the greatest value to the lowest investment, and lowering tremendously the unit cost of educating our people. All our public universities must seriously consider this option as we enter the 21st century.

Even with its teething problems, the Open University of Tanzania has a teacher-student ratio of 1 to 146, compared to 1 to 7 at this university; 1 to 6 at Sokoine University; an unbelievable 1 to 2 ratio at UCLAS; a 1 to 5 ratio at the University College of Health Sciences; and so on. Let me say this, I have already demonstrated my willingness to give teachers a better pay than civil servants, but I want a better return on this investment.

The government fully supports expansion of distance education and I want to urge conventional educational centres to establish some form of distance education such as correspondence education, evening classes, TV/Radio programmes, and other modern information technology channels.

Policy on Higher Education
Mr. Chancellor,
Let me in conclusion point out that a number of the measures I have referred to are actually part of a new policy on higher education that we are in the process of formulating and towards which some of you may have made contributions. As part of that policy a Higher Education Act is to be enacted.

Among the issues that the new policy will seek to address is the rationalisation of tertiary education institutions in Tanzania and bringing some order into the rather chaotic system we have now in relation to entry qualifications, awards, staff grading and titles, and so on.

The new policy will also seek to make optimal use of the large investments in public higher education we have made in terms of infrastructure and academic staff training. Yet, even as practically all our tertiary education institutions face budgetary problems, they all have very low teacher-student ratios, averaging 1 to 8. We need more value from this infrastructure and the teaching staff in these institutions of higher learning.

Mr. Chancellor,
I have spoken too long. But I suppose my speech is within the time frame of one lecture. Still I am reminded of a wit who once said:

"We are born with our eyes closed and our mounts open. And we are still trying to reverse that mistake of nature".

Indeed, we need less talking and keep our eyes and ears open. I open mine now and keep my mouth shut to let you take your turn at carrying forward that mistake of nature.

I thank you for your kind attention.