Tanzania: Education is Key to Development, Says Don

Tanzania must invest heavily in human capital if it wanted to become a middle income developing country by 2025.
This was stated in Arusha last week by the former vice chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam Prof. Mathew Luhanga during the launching of a special account by Bank of Baroda to support children education.He said human resources were critical for the country's development above huge infrastructures and finances, arguing that it was a big mistake to ignore giving skills and knowledge to people.
Prof. Luhanga, the longest serving Vice Chancellor of UDSM and any other university in the country's history, said plans to turn the country a middle income developing state may backfire if people were not well trained.
"There had been strong concerns of skilled manpower for the country's development. That is why the institutions of higher learning have been struggling to fill the gap" he told an audience during the launching of Baroda Shule Account.
He said when he took over as UDSM VC in 1991, the entire university had a student population of only 3,300 compared to 21,000 when he retired late last year.
According to the don, who is a board member of Bank of Baroda, the gender balance at UDSM, the country's oldest university, has improved in the last few years.
The Faculty of Law, the oldest in the university, has already attained the desired 50 to 50 per cent ratio between male and female students.
Overall, the female students now account for 33 per cent of the whole student population at UDSM compared to only 16 per cent in 1991 when UDSM was one of the only two existing universities in the country then.
The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, concentrated on the main campus, is second to Law faculty in having a high ratio of female students