MINISTER in the President’s Office
responsible for Regional Administration and Local Government, George
Simbachawene, has paid glowing tribute to President John Magufuli,
saying he should not be bothered by ‘empty noises.’
Winding up the ministry’s 2017/2018
budget estimates here on Thursday evening, Mr Simbachawene told the
House that all previous presidents faced criticism from a section of the
public but still surged forward and registered remarkable achievements
for the nation under their leadership.
He said from the first phase government
under the late Julius Nyerere, that of Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Benjamin Mkapa
and Magufuli’s immediate predecessor, Jakaya Kikwete, have all been
mocked by people in opposition, but when they stepped out of power they
were praised by the same people.
“I’m encouraging Dr Magufuli to turn a
deaf ear to all this noise and maintain his grip in cleaning up this
country and make his desired fundamental changes,” he said. Bunge
unanimously endorsed 6.57trn/- for the ministry’s financial year
2017/2018, which represent a 20.72 per cent of the entire national
budget amounting to 31.7trn/-.
The amount also represents an increment
of 516,240,633,637/- which is 8.52 per cent compared to the current
budget. Some of the highlights of the ministry’s budget is the success
by the government’s grand plan of providing free and quality education,
which has seen the enrolment tripled in many schools countrywide.
Simbachawene said enrolment for kindergarten schools shot up to 1,345,636 in 2017 compared to 971,716 registered last year.
However, he said in 2017, enrolment for
Standard One pupils reached 1,842,513 compared to 1,896,584 registered
last year and in total 3,188,149 were enrolled in both kindergarten and
primary level this year, which represents the increase of 319,849.
Minister Simbachawene said the increase in enrolment has created an
infrastructure crisis in some areas.
“We are experiencing shortage of classes
and laboratories. We understand that some schools are struggling to
cope with the huge number of new pupils after the government announced
primary and secondary education would be free,” he said.
He said the ministry has directed
districts and regional commissioners to continue fast –tracking
construction of classrooms to address the shortage in their respective
areas.
The minister insisted that Tanzanians
ought to know that the free education policy did not mean that the
government would finance everything to enable a student to acquire
education. He said parents and other stakeholders should be involved in
addressing some of the challenges at school.
He also said the government has managed
to pay 10bn/- it owed to teachers and another 4.2bn/- for purchasing
educational equipment.
Another 1.75bn/- was spent on renovating
infrastructure at 19 primary schools. By March, this year, he said the
government in collaboration with citizens and other stakeholders managed
to complete construction of 45,348 primary school teachers’ houses, but
the shortage remained at 182,899 housing units.
For secondary schools, the minister said
a total of 14,346 houses were built, hence cutting the shortage to
69,794 housing units.
He further said improvement in teaching
environment has enabled pass rate at the National Standard Four
Examinations to improve from 88.87 per cent in 2015 to 93.36 per cent in
2016, while pass rate at Standard Seven improved from 68.4 per cent in
2015 to 70.36 per cent last year.
All pupils who passed their Standard
Seven exams were selected to join various secondary schools in the
country this year, he said.
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