Maravi

Tertiary education

Tertiary education
By Editor
Sat 06 Feb. 2010, 04:00 CAT

A society which values its future affords the highest priority to providing its young people with the best possible education.

The statistics of figures of secondary school leavers who access higher education given by Dr Patrick Nkanza tell a very frightening story. We are told that only six per cent of the total number of pupils who complete Grade 12 are able to access a higher education. We are also told that only three per cent of this six per cent access technical, educational, vocational and entrepreneurship training, two per cent go to universities and one per cent pursue other tertiary programmes. And this leaves 94 per cent of our school leavers in limbo, waiting for the dice to roll.

Dr Nkanza further observed that there was need for the government to formulate the national skills development plan, so as to increase the number of training institutions in the country. Are we being told that our country doesn’t have a national skills development plan? If this is so, how can we seriously talk about development? Is there a country in the world that has developed without such high skills among its people? Is there a country that has developed with 94 per cent of its young people, of its school leavers not accessing tertiary education?

Good tertiary education policy is very critical to the development of our country. And it is time our policy makers recognised that tertiary education is a major driver of economic competitiveness in an increasingly knowledge-driven global economy which has made high quality tertiary education more important than ever before. The imperative for our policy makers, for those who manage the affairs of our country is to raise higher-level employment skills, to sustain a globally competitive research base and to improve knowledge dissemination to the benefit of society.

It is criminal to deny 94 per cent of our school leavers access to tertiary education. Tertiary education contributes to social and economic development in many ways – the formulation of human capital, primarily through teaching; the building of knowledge bases, primarily through research and knowledge development; the dissemination and use of knowledge, primarily through interactions with knowledge users; and the maintenance of knowledge.

Of course, the scope and importance of tertiary education have changed significantly over the years. Over 40 years ago, tertiary education, which was more commonly referred to as higher education, was what happened in universities. This largely covered teaching and learning requiring high-level conceptual and intellectual skills in the humanities, sciences and social sciences, the preparation of students for entry to a limited number of professions such as medicine, engineering and law, and disinterested advanced research and scholarship. These days, tertiary education is much more diversified and encompasses new types of institutions such as colleges, university colleges, or technological institutes. These have been created for a number of reasons: to develop a closer relationship between tertiary education and external world, including greater responsiveness to labour market needs; to enhance social and geographical access to tertiary education; to provide high-level occupational preparation in a more applied and less theoretical way; and to accommodate the growing diversity of qualifications and expectations of school leavers.

As participation in tertiary education is expanding, tertiary education institutions are expected to assume responsibility for a far wide range of occupational preparation than in the past. And as the result of a combination of the increased knowledge base of many occupations and individual’s aspirations, not only doctors, engineers and lawyers but also nurses, accountants, computer programmers, teachers, pharmacists and business managers now receive their principal occupation qualifications from tertiary institutions.

Furthermore, tertiary institutions are now expected to involve themselves in a wider range of teaching than their traditional degree or diploma level courses. It is also increasingly becoming more common for tertiary education institutions not only to engage in teaching and research, but also to provide consult services to industry and government and to contribute to national economic and social development.

Clearly, what is needed here is not only to increase access to tertiary education but also to encourage institutions offering tertiary education to be more responsive to the needs of society and the economy. This calls for a reappraisal of our tertiary education and the setting of new strategies for the future.

Knowledge and advanced skills are critical determinants of a country’s economic growth and standard of living and learning outcomes are transformed into goods and services, greater institutional capacity, a more effective public sector, a stronger civil society, and a better investment climate. Good quality, merit-based, equitable, efficient tertiary education and research should be essential parts of whatever social and economic transformations we undertake. Our country will certainly benefit from the dynamic of the knowledge economy. The capacity for our country to adopt, disseminate, and maximise rapid technological advances is dependent on an adequate and efficient system of tertiary education. Improved and accessed tertiary education and effective national innovation systems can help our country progress toward sustainable achievements in the Millennium Development Goals, particularly those goals related to all levels of education, health and gender equality.

There is need for us to be very clear when we talk about tertiary education. When we talk about tertiary education broadly, we are referring to all post secondary school education, including but not limited to universities. Universities are clearly a key part of our tertiary system, but the diverse and growing set of public and private tertiary institutions in our country – colleges, technical training institutes, nursing schools, distance learning centres, and many more – should be developed to form a network of institutions that our country needs to support the production of the higher-order capacity necessary for development.

As we have already stated, it will not be possible to develop this country without a good system of tertiary education. But our politicians, our policy makers don’t seem to see this as a priority area, a key result area. The amount of money that they spend on their own personal allowances for attending political meetings far outweighs what they spend or are willing to spend on tertiary education.

It seems to be such an easy thing for George Kunda to ask for an additional K5 billion to cater for an increase in allowances of Lusaka-based members of parliament attending the National Constitutional Conference. It also seems so easy for the Minister of Finance to mobilise such money for allowances of members of parliament, which include himself and George. But if any of our tertiary institutions – the University of Zambia, Copperbelt University, Evelyn Hone College, among others – ask for a smaller amount of money than this, it can’t be found, it’s not there, it wasn’t budgeted for. This is how our country is being run. When one looks at the amount of money that has been spent and is being spent on allowances for those attending the National Constitutional Conference, one wonders if this really is a poor country. Why should ministers of government be paid additional allowances for attending to public duties within the normal working time when they are on full time salary? Ministers are paid a salary for being full time servants of the people, why should they be paid an allowance for going to Parliament or for sitting on the National Constitutional Conference during the time they should be sitting in government offices and are being paid for that? This is banditry! This is corruption! They are collecting double pay for one job, for the same job from the same employer! They can’t say they are being paid overtime because there is no such a thing in that job. They are simply stealing public funds.

This also applies to other public workers, whatever their description, who are in full-time employment and are salaried, who leave their offices to go and collect allowances from the National Constitutional Conference or the boards of other public institutions on which they sit.

This money is needed for tertiary education. And all those receiving such money as double pay should in future, when there is change of regime, be asked to return it. It is needed for tertiary education.

Labels: CARITAS, TEVETA, VOCATIONAL TRAINING

posted by MrK @ 3:48 PM