How Nyerere reformed education, fought ignorance

TANZANIA: HAVING assumed the reins of the country’s power after independence, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the founding father of the nation, declared ignorance, disease and poverty as the main three enemies to the country’s development goals.

However, to be able to effectively wage a spirited war against poverty and diseases, Mwalimu Nyerere found it logical to start with a campaign of eradicating illiteracy among the population given the fact that majority of Tanzanians were unable to read and write.

It is estimated that 85 per cent of the population was illiterate and extremely poor. Hunger, widespread disease and low average life expectancy of just above 40 years, were also major obstacles to development.

For example, Mzee Pius Msekwa, the first CCM Secretary General (Executive Secretary) has documented in one of his pieces that Mwalimu Nyerere’s resolve to reform education started with his vision on ‘education for selfreliance.’

He says education for self-reliance was first given expression in the TANU’s policy document titled: “The Arusha Declaration on Socialism and Self-reliance,” which was promulgated on 5th February, 1967.

“This was during the first decade of the country’s independence, which was characterised as the ‘period of vibrancy’; in terms of ‘resolution, action and bold attempts at innovation,” Mzee Msekwa says in one of his write-ups titled ‘Memories of Mwalimu Nyerere; His Vision on Education and Selfreliance.’

According to Mzee Msekwa, Mwalimu Nyerere himself found time to write and publish a book in which he said: “Our education must inculcate a sense of commitment to the total community, and help the students to accept the values that are appropriate to our future, and not to our colonial past.”

By that Mwalimu meant that the country’s education must be consistent with and complementary to, the ambitions of a society aspiring to a socialist mode of existence, characterised by respect for human dignity, equality, participation in cooperative endeavours and, above all, commitment to hard, productive work.

Mzee Msekwa says, in his own words ( Mwalimu) said: “Our schools must become communities that actually practice the precept of selfreliance.

The teachers, the other school workers and the students, must be members of a social unit in the same way as the members of an Ujamaa village are expected to be, namely, a social unit consisting of people who live together and work together, for the benefit of all”.

The former National Assembly Speaker shares more insights, saying the government Three-Year Development Plan (1961 – 4), which was put in place immediately after the attainment of the country’s independence, recorded no less than six practical decisions affecting the education sector alone.

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They included racial integration of the school system; the rapid expansion of secondary education by establishing more schools, increasing student enrolment; t h e expansion of teacher teaching programmes and the termination of parent payable school fees; among others.

“These were Mwalimu Nyerere’s initial tasks after the achievement of independence; which centered primarily on building a new country which is distinctly different from that which we inherited from the colonialist,” Mzee Msekwa points out.

But academicians such as Gloria Mbogoma state that being an educator and a Head of State, Mwalimu Julius questioned the rationale of the education system inherited from colonialism which perpetuated exploitation and underdevelopment in post-colonial Tanzania.

She says the late Mwalimu Nyerere noticed that the education system, after the country gained her political independence in 1961, did not sufficiently meet the needs and social objectives of Tanzanians.

According to Mwalimu Nyerere, colonial education was offered to a few individuals to meet the objectives of the coloniser.

He therefore proposed that schools must not only become integral parts of the community and society but also carry out activities designed to make them financially selfsufficient.

This missing link is what prompted Mwalimu Nyerere to come up with an Education for Self-Reliance policy  with the goal of re-examining and modifying the education system so that it could meet the objectives of Arusha Declaration which was formulated in 1967.

“Education for Self-reliance emerged as an attempt to revolutionise the educational system, making it more relevant to Tanzanians, while using education as a vehicle for eliminating socioeconomic inequalities in Tanzania and cultivating a culture of selfreliance,” says Ms Mbogoma in her paper for the Master Degree submitted to the University of Pretoria.

Prof Derek Mulenga from University of South Florida says Mwalimu Nyerere introduced Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme in 197Os in keeping with its “education for self-reliance” policy.

Implementation of Ujamaa Village programme also enabled the government to increase schools and other infrastructures for social service provision.

Provision of education was also guaranteed in the constitution as a basic human right. Under UPE programme each child aged seven years was obliged to go to school to acquire education that was provided freely.

Massive enrolment of children into schools necessitated Mwalimu Nyerere to come up with a strategy of preparing teachers to bridge the gap that emerged.

Adult Education

As part of the education reforms after independence, Mwalimu Nyerere introduced adult education, focusing on eradicating illiteracy in the country, given the fact that at independence, over 70 per cent of adult Tanzanians were illiterate.

Experts in educational philosophy like Prof Abel Ishumi from the University of Dar es Salaam say the object of adult education in Tanzania was not merely to teach literacy, but to help adults find solutions to other problems such as hunger, ignorance, disease and soil erosion.

Adult education was seen as vital to the spread and implementation of ujamaa or African Socialism in the countryside.

The experts say Nyerere’s philosophy on adult education, lifelong learning and education for liberation was in many ways a natural development of his ideas embodied in Education for Self-Reliance, particularly those relating to some of the inherent limitations and inadequacies of formal schooling.

They say that Nyerere’s conviction about the role of adult education as a means of development and as a part of development has been recognised by many development planners, economists and educators.

In addition to imparting knowledge and skills, he looked on adult education as basically a political process.

According to Nyerere, one of the primary and most significant functions of adult education was to arouse consciousness and critical awareness among the people about the need for and possibility of change.

The second function or stage of adult education is to help people to determine the nature of the change they want and how to bring it about.