PRESIDENT MAGUFULI’s RARE VISIT TO MBEYA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (MUST), AND HIS PRACTICE OF ‘ON THE SPOT GUIDANCE’.

           

On Friday, 3^rd May, 2019; The Mbeya University of Science and Technology (MUST), was exceedingly delighted, and indeed was hugely lucky,  to have been given the opportunity  to  play host to a rare visit by  the Head of State, President John Pombe  Magufuli,  of the United Republic of Tanzania.   Under normal circumstances, an official, scheduled visit by the Head of State to any one University is, of necessity, a very rare event;  for one good reason, which is that currently, Tanzania has no less than fifty- two duly accredited Universities. Hence, considering the usual pressure that is ordinarily exerted on the President’s valuable time, the organizers of the President’s official ‘high profile’ Regional tours normally do not include Universities, when drawing up the itinerary for such Presidential visits.                                                
During the First Phase Government of Mwalimu  Nyerere, the position was totally different; simply because at that time, the country had only one University, namely the University of Dar es Salaam; and,  by a provision of the University of Dar es Salaam Act of 1970, the President was also its Chancellor.                  
 It will be remembered that the University of Dar es Salaam grew out of the erstwhile “Dar es Salaam University College”, that was a constituent College of the University of East Africa.  Under the law which established he College, President  Nyerere had been appointed “Visitor” to the College. This was a somewhat unusual position, but one which he used to the full, by visiting the college not only on formal graduation occasions, but also on more private and intimate visits, which gave him the opportunity to discuss pertinent issues directly with the staff and students, mostly about politics and the state of the national economy.                                    In one of these Visitor / student encounters in October 1966; a serious incident occurred, which is worth recounting here, for it provides a valuable lesson even for today’s students. It concerned the introduction of the “National Service” programme, which was strongly opposed by some of the students at the College, who therefore demanded to see the President in his capacity as Visitor to the College, to express their objection to that programme.

When their intention was made known to President Nyerere, he not only agreed to see them at once, but decided to invite them to State House for the proposed talks. He obviously had made up his mind that these students had adopted the undesirable “elitist attitudes of superiority”, which had to be corrected; and had therefore decided to give them a bashing; not as Visitor to the College, but as the Head of State and Government of the United Republic.                                                                                            
Thus, at the end of his lecture to them, the President ordered all the 393 students who were present at that meeting to be sent home immediately, for a period of two years; presumably in order to ‘pup some sense into their thick heads”. In one of his earlier speeches before this incident, Mwalimu Nyerere had said the following :-  “Our University students have large amounts of money spent on their education, while many others have none.  Therefore, all those who receive that privilege have a duty and an obligation, to repay the sacrifice which others have made . . . If any of our young men and women who are given such expensive education at the expense of the people of the United Republic begin to adopt attitudes of superiority, they are betraying the nation”.                                                                                                                                             

After the University of Dar es Salaam was established in 1970, the President, in his capacity as Chancellor of the University, had a binding obligation to make regular, scheduled visits to the University, primarily in order to preside over the annual graduation ceremonies.  However, when the number of public Universities started increasing rapidly in the early 1990s, the President ceased to be Chancellor of any of them, and the said provision was removed from the University of Dar es Salaam Ac,  and replaced by  a different provision  which empowers the  President to appoint the Vice Chancellor. This provision was subsequently made also in the omnibus “Tanzania Universities Act” which governs all Tanzanian Universities. That is why President John Magufuli is not Chancellor of any of the fifty- two current Universities; and, in respect of the Mbeya University of Science and Technology (MUST), which is the subject of this article,  I am  the lucky person appointed by President Magufuli to be its current Chancellor.  

President Magufuli’s “on the spot guidance” at the Mbeya University.
There is an old practice that is attributed to the celebrated former leader of North Korea, Kim il Sung, which is described as “on the spot guidance”.  It simply describes the said leader of North Korea regular habit of making a visit to a work place, or site, of given project; and after inspecting the work that was in progress there, would instantly issue such instructions as he would deem necessary, in order to facilitate the successful and timely completion of the relevant project. 

  It now appears that President Magufuli has fully adopted this ‘revolutionary’ practice; and therein lies the source of the substantial benefits which accrued to Mbeya University as a result of his visit,  after  he issued “on the spot guidance” for certain projects to be undertaken, “in honour of Mwalimu Nyerere”.  In the course of his speech to the assembled Mbeya University community, he ordered  the upgrading to tarmac level  of the access road which leads to the University,  plus the provision of money  for the purchase of modern teaching equipment, to replace the outdated  equipment left behind by the Russians; President said clearly that he was doing so “in honour and remembrance of the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere”. 
    As we have already indicated above, the present Mbeya University of Science and Technology was one of the mega projects which were initiated by Mwalimu Nyerere; but could not be completed as planned, due to certain adverse circumstances which suddenly emerged, and provided a total blockage to the progress of this project; as elaborated here below.  This is how it happened:-  President Nyerere’s  had secured financial support from the Government of the ‘Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ (USSR) (as that country was known then), for the establishment of what would subsequently become a Technical University, but took some time to decide on its location.  When he had made his decision, he summoned the Minister for Education, at that time Nicholas Kuhanga, to inform him that the facility would be located in Mbeya Town.  I was fortunate to witness this event, just because it occurred at a time when I had been appointed Executive secretary of the newly established Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), and had gone to CCM Chairman Mwalimu Nyerere’s  Msasani residence,  to report to him on some party matter. I was still there when Minister Kuhanga arrived.         
Kudos to the Government of the Soviet Union, which started in earnest to implement the project, and had gone some considerable way in the construction of the required infrastructure, when the unexpected suddenly happened, which was the collapse of what was the Soviet Union, in 1989. That sudden occurrence effectively closed down the major source of funding for the said project; and the facility’s infrastructure remained practically ‘stunted’ at the level it had reached when the Russians departed.

President Magufuli’s  remembrance of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.

In view of President Magufuli’s reference to Mwalimu Nyerere in his speech at MUST; it may be helpful  at this juncture,  to remind our readers of the current generation, of some of the late President Nyerere’s works  and thoughts with regard  to the purpose of  education in general, and of University education in particular.  Because of limited editorial space, it is not possible to give full treatment to this important aspect in this article. However, we can make some brief references to Mwalimu Nyerere’s important policy of “Education for Self-Reliance”.

 “Education for Self- Reliance” (ESR).

In March 1967, Mwalimu Nyerere published a ‘treatise’ titled Education for Self-Reliance” (Government Printer, Dar es Salaam).  This was a by-product of the wider policy document titled “TANU’s policy on Socialism and Self-Reliance”, also authored by Mwalimu Nyerere himself, which had been published a month earlier in February, 1967. Basically, the ESR document was a critical analysis of the educational system that had been inherited from the colonial Administration, and it also identified the ill effects that system had created, including  ‘elitism, social inequality, and the indignity of manual work’.                                                         In that document, Mwalimu Nyerere  stated as follows: “ The education provided by the Colonial Administration was not designed to prepare our young people for the service of their own country; instead, it was motivated by a desire to inculcate the values of the colonizing society . . . It induced attitudes of human inequality; and in practice, underpinned the domination of the weak by the strong, especially in the economic field . . . Our education must therefore inculcate a sense of commitment to the total community, and help the students to accept the values appropriate to our society’s needs and requirements”.                                                                                                                                         But in addition, Mwalimu  Nyerere  also considered technical education as one sure way of achieving the objective of self-reliance.  That is precisely why, when the University of Dar es Salaam was established in July 1970, (having been upgraded from the previous Dar es Salaam University College of the University of East Africa),  it had no Faculty of Engineering, because the  policy of the University of East Africa had been to distribute the major professional disciplines of Medicine, Engineering and Law; to each of the three University Colleges. Accordingly, the Faculty of Engineering had been given to Nairobi University College.  But soon after Dar es Salaam University College had attained University status, President Nyerere quickly initiated discussions with the German Government, for support in the construction and establishment of a Faculty of Engineering; plus a Technical College in Arusha.                             Agreement on both these projects was soon reached, and, in my capacity as Vice Chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam at the material time, I was mandated to lead a small three-person delegation to Bonn, Germany,  to put the final touches,  and to sign  the said Agreement. 
But, in President Nyerere’s far-sighted view, that would not be enough for the country’s future needs for the provision of engineering skills. Thus, partly inspired by the example of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, he requested support from the Government of the Soviet Union for the establishment, initially, of  Mbeya Technical College; which would be progressively developed to the status of an accredited University.  This Technical College was subsequently upgraded to  “Mbeya Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) as a transitional stage in preparation for its conversion to its present status of Mbeya University of Science and Technology (MUST).  This was eventually achieved in 2012; in fulfilment of  Mwalimu Nyerere’s ‘dream’.  This is the story of the genesis of Mbeya University of Science and Technology which, only last week, was privileged to host a ‘rare’ visit by the Head of State, President John Pombe Magufuli.
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Source: Daily News and courtesy of Cde Msekwa.