Former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa has cited quality education as a necessary ingredient to improve standards of living.

Quoting Prof. Malcolm Gillis, a former Rice University president, Houston, Texas, Mr Mkapa said: "The wealth or poverty of nations depends on the quality of higher education. Those with skills and capacity for learning can look forward to lifetimes of unprecedented economic fulfillment. But in the coming of decades, the poorly educated face little better than the dreary prospects of lives of quiet desperation."

Mr Mkapa said the amount of new knowledge created in universities can be used to create competitive and skilled people to lead the country to economic gain. "Higher education is an expensive investment by poor Africans for the future. We must produce more people who generate new knowledge, not just those who use and recycle existing knowledge," he said.