PM opens education exhibition

By Augusta Njoji

Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda

Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda, opening the national education exhibition yesterday, said there is a need for more investment in ward and government schools to improve performance.


He said: “In 2013 low the performance average in ward school which was 48 percent compared to 59.7 percent in government schools.”

The number of students who passed the Form Four exams in 2013 improved in ward school, this is because the schools have a big number of students, he said.

As for Big Result Now (BRN), he said the government was planning to present awards to 3,000 schools which perform well and show the potential of moving forward.
“This programme has managed to improve the quality of primary education by 50.6 percent in 2013 from 30.7 of 2012.

For secondary education, this improved from 43 percent of 2012 up to 58 percent in 2013,” the PM said, urging the Ministry of Local government and Regional Administration to take accountability for any directors who misuse funds allocated to the education sector.

“We want to stay away from the problem of infrastructure in our schools. The improvement of infrastructure in 56 schools out of 264 was completed at the end of last year” Pinda said.

There is a special government programme to eliminate shortage of teachers, specifically in science and mathematics.

On his part Deputy Minister for Tamisemi said the education exhibition will be an annual event.

Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda has said that, most primary schools in the country are facing acute shortage of 1.5 million desks , an aspect that the premier has requested the ministry of Education and Vocational Training to give a priority in its development plan to address the problem.

A statement issued by Prime Minister’s office is quoted as saying that, Premier Pinda issued a directive yesterday in Dodoma when addressing hundreds of residents who gathered during the launch of a week of Education in the country which took place at Jamhuri stadium.

“statistics shows that 3,302,678 desks are needed while only 1,837,783 are available now. This means there is a shortage of 1,464,895 in our primary schools countrywide. 

SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY