EDITORIAL: We must join forces to keep orphans in school

Education is both a right and necessity for every Tanzanian child. Indeed,it is the bridge to success in life. It is because of this that the government allocates a big chunk of its budget to education every year. It will be recalled that the government introduced Universal Primary Education (UPE)in 1977, with the express purpose of getting every child to learn the 3Rs--reading, writing and arithmetic. Unfortunately, many children cannot continue studying beyond primary school because they have lost their parents. This is the end of the road for most of them for they have no hope of getting assistance elsewhere because their relatives are poor, most living below one dollar a day. It is perhaps this predicament that prompted the Parastatal Pension Fund (PPF) to come to the assistance of children who lose parents at an early stage. With the organisation’s help, they will now be able to continue their education. And it was none other than First Lady Mama Salma Kikwete who showered praise on PPF for the gesture and called on other institutions to borrow a leaf from it. The idea is good, and will certainly be of great assistance to many children if taken up by other social security funds. We refer to the National Social Security Fund, Local Government Security Fund and others falling under the umbrella of the Social Security Regulatory Authority (SSRA). By their very names, these are social security funds and helping these children would go a long way towards fulfilling the purpose for which they were established. While we congratulate PPF for the initiative, we call upon SSRA to issue guidelines to institutions under its jurisdiction that would start the ball rolling and help these orphans stay in school.