TEACHERS SAY IMF, WB NOT ADVISING WELL IN EDUCATION

TheTanzania Teachers` Union (TTU) has accused the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for what it called misleading the government on the development of education sector in the country.

?Officiating at a seminar on good neighbourhood by the TTU leaders in Lake Zone regions, the union?s president, Gratian Mukoba said the international financial institutions had been providing financial assistance with stiff conditions and giving the government erroneous advice on the education sector.

??The world is currently being governed by dishonest people. Several times the developing countries have been given funds with so rigid conditions, sometimes telling them not to recruit teachers on the grounds that there are too many. Or advising them to reintroduce schools fees,? he said.

He added: ?We have now to think more than we used to do. We should come up strongly againts international financial institutions and refuse arguments advanced by them that investing in education and paying teachers good salaries is wastage of resources.?

?He said: ``We have to tell these people (IMF and WB) that their short-term programmes to improve the economy will never benefit education in our countries since results after investing the sector take a long time to geminate.

For example crash programmes for teachers that the government earlier refused has been returned on grounds that there are many schools,`` he said.

?Mukoba noted that what is now produced was for paying international debts and that it was a high time to break what he called the vicious circle and build an independent and respectable society.

?He urged TTU leaders countrywide to be inventive and bring about constructive changes in their union.

The two-day seminar was attended by district and regional TTU secretaries and chairpersons from Mwanza, Mara, Shinyanga and Kagera regions.

SOURCE: Guardian