The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
1 November 2007
opinion
HAKIELIMU is one of the few better known and ardently followed non-governmental organizations in Tanzania today. It is also one of the most maligned by the Government. Paradoxically, this has turned out to be a counterproductive strategy, making people sit up and take notice. It was like the Government were breaking eggs with a sledgehammer!
HakiElimu has been a very effective activist in the education sector. And, despite strenuous efforts by the Government to drive it underground and out of action, the NGO has instead grown from strength to strength.
I will not here delve into the NGO's history, or the successes it has chalked up over the few years since the Government embarked on broad-based expansion programmes for primary and secondary education.
Suffice it here to say the general view is that the programmes have not been efficaciously far reaching enough - or coordinated, coherent, comprehensive and free enough from misfeasance - to impress the stamp of sustainable success on the sector.
For example, while enrolment in primary schools has escalated under the Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP-2002), the same cannot be said for associated facilities and personnel: classrooms, desks, books, teachers, etc.
Furthermore, there suddenly was not enough room in secondary schools to accommodate the increased primary school crop.
Hence the mushrooming of jerry-built secondary schools under the original Secondary Education Development Programme (SEDP-2004) and outside it.
Perhaps inevitably again, this is going on minus the expansion of the facilities and personnel required to give sanity, rhyme and reason to the exercise!
As the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere (1922-1999) said in his publication 'The
Situation and Challenges of Education in Tanzania' (October 22, 1984): 'When talking about Secondary School expansion, we are very quick to say that the people will put up the buildings by their own efforts.
'But, the buildings,' Mwalimu went on, 'are less important The important things in Education are the teachers, the books - and, for Science, the laboratories '
HakiElimu has not only been faithfully echoing Mwalimu on the matter; the NGO has also been expanding on it - and graphically dramatizing same for better understanding by Tanzanians and the country's development partners.
And, the present leadership is embarrassed no end by this. Hence it's felt need to kill the NGO dead and bury it far away from our consciences.
Given a level playing field, however, the Government will not succeed in doing so.
This is especially considering that HakiElimu does not conjure its lessons sangoma-like from the thin air, or out of a magician's hat. It draws its inputs - and its formidable strength - from official records published by the Government and its institutions, as well as researched happenings on the ground.
If truth shall set you free, it also shall stand by you through the thick and thin. This is made more so by the fact that, more often than not, the Government's actions against HakiElimu (and similar whistleblowers) are based on unfounded and unjustified fears, amply compounded by misconceptions.
Take, for instance, the NGO's advertisements currently doing the rounds. I have in mind here three Ads involving 'Kayumba,' a primary schoolboy who is finding it difficult to cope with the situation. In one of the Ads, Kayumba's mother directs him to forego classes and instead peddle peanuts to raise the necessary wherewithal to keep body and soul at the homestead.
In another, the lad has to trot from home to school because there is no school bus to speak of - and stonehearted commuter bus conductors won't let him aboard; there is no mileage in carrying pupils at a fifth of the official fare!
The third Ad shows that, although Kayumba has qualified for secondary education, he is forced to skip the opportunity for lack of the requisite school fees.
With nothing else to do, the fellow resorts to peddling boiled eggs. By parity of reasoning, the young man is doing this not to raise school fees, but to help keep body and soul together at the household level.
The deputy minister for education, Mwantumu Mahiza, reportedly said that the Kayumba adverts grate on her nerves. [Mtanzania: October 12, 2007].
Speaking on a Radio Wapo programme on October 14, 2007, the minister described the ads as irrelevant. For instance, she argued, Kayumba must by now have earned the Sh20,000 he needs for (Government) secondary school fees. He should, therefore, attend classes!
But, this is not the point of the ads. In fact, HakiElimu has set out to show that the Government is doing everything possible to ensure that the Kayumbas of this country get proper and full education.
However, irresponsible parents thwart the Government's efforts by keeping their children away from school so that they can earn some money for the family's thinly-spread dinner table.
Kayumba is not selling eggs, peanuts, etc, to raise school fees. He is doing so in a puny but noble and necessary effort to help keep body and soul together in the family!
If only many of our Government officials would read between the lines to fully understand and appreciate HakiElimu - and if they would realize that Ufisadi in high places is the major cause of 98 per cent the trouble in Tanzania
That is hopefully when the officials would recognise the need not only to support HakiElimu in its noble endeavours to inform and educate Tanzanians, but would also encourage and support the Sestablishment of more such NGOs:
HakiAfya; HakiSheria; HakiMadini, HakiChakula, HakiMiundombinu, et al
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