Which explains why Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training Minister Prof Joyce Ndalichako took everyone by surprise as she emotionally but methodically described how some universities and colleges had hatched a sinister scheme to admit unqualified students to pursue various degree programmes.
As a higher education regulator, TCU was supposed to conduct periodic evaluations of universities, their systems and programmes so as to assure and control the education quality imparted by the universities, thus validating the qualifications attained from the respective universities and colleges.
Recent years have witnessed a rapid increase in the number of higher education institutions in the country. Up to the mid 1980s there were only two universities and a handful of specialist colleges, but currently there are over 40 registered universities, the majority of them being privately owned.
In a country with over 40 million people, the gross university enrolment ratio remains at just over 1 per cent, and while the number of private higher education institutions has ballooned in recent times, leading to a significant impact in boosting access, most of these universities are relatively small.
So, it is baffling that private higher education institutions such as St. Joseph University in Tanzania (SJUIT) could initiate special programmes with the blessing of TCU which end up defying its own set standards governing admission procedures.
According to the minister, at least 1,000 O-level students not even qualified to pursue certificate courses were enrolled to pursue undergraduate degree courses in various universities and colleges in the 2013/14 academic year, posing a number of questions about the TCU board’s ability to execute the role entrusted to it by the nation.
It is no wonder that TCU has failed its vision, which strives to make the regulator a world-class higher education regulatory agency supporting systematic growth and excellence of university education in Tanzania.
The regulatory body was further supposed to ensure orderly performance of universities, quality standards, support universities in coordinating student admission, offering training and other sensitization interventions in key areas, such as quality assurance, leadership and management, amongst others.
While qualified higher learning students were struggling to get government loans, thus having to postpone their studies, hundreds of failed ones had managed to secure both enrolment and loans to pursue higher education for which they were not even qualified.
So, news that 489 students enrolled at the SJUIT Songea and Arusha campuses had already been expelled as a result of this scandal is quite momentous; so is the dissolution of TCU.
We find that this is a positive move that is geared to restoring the value of education in the country. However, the government should take further action and expel the remaining unqualified students from the higher education system so as to rescue the quality of our university education from declining further.
Equally, the government should drastic disciplinary measures against those who engineered this evil scheme from both TCU and the academia.
For the quality of Tanzania’s university education should the world over be beyond reproach.
_0.jpg?itok=QU87XW8D){kind=tracking}
.jpeg?itok=vCj6bCRe)
