Conduct research to seek solutions to challenges facing people’

HIGHER learning institutions in the country have been challenged to conduct researches on how the current education system can have direct impact on daily lives of people.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry for Education, Science and Technology Dr Francis Michael made the call during the anniversaries of 60 years of the University of Dar es Salaam and 17 years of the Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE).

The event which was held at DUCE’s main campus in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday attracted academicians and different stakeholders, who together, deliberated on various issues to scale up the education sector.

“It is the responsibilities of universities in the country to engage in research works aimed at finding out solutions to different challenges facing people in their daily lives.

“Also, research on how the higher learning education is capable to go along with the current situation in the country. Base on both national and international levels and thereafter, come up with resolutions on which path is good to go,” he said.

Commenting on how to mitigate unemployment problems, Dr Michael said that many efforts should be directed to facilitate competency based education.

“We need to come up with specific programmes whereby students should be imparted with skills to the extent that when they finish their studies, it should be easy for them to employ themselves.

“This is exactly what our President Samia Suluhu Hassan wants us to do in this education sector otherwise, we will be producing many graduands with nothing to do despite having academic certificates,” he said.

On his part, UDSM Vice-Chancellor Prof William Anangisye observed that the country face the problem of enough physics teachers, insisting that at DUCE, they have put in place adequate environment to sharpen such teachers.

“Most competitive teachers in the country are products of DUCE and they are doing recommendable job wherever they go. This is the standard we have set to be among the best education institutes,” he said.

He also seized the platform to acknowledge good cooperation they get from government while vowing to continue provision of quality education to enrolled students both at UDSM and DUCE.

In terms of successes recorded at the institution for the past 17 years, DUCE Principal Prof. Stephen Maluka highlighted that the number of intake keep on growing hence an indicator that people have trust with education standards they offer.

He also elaborated that to accommodate well the situation; they are also increasing the number of programmes in order to provide diversification of offered courses.