Abolition of Boarding O-level Govt Sec Schools!!!

This is outrage!

The decisions being made in the Ministry responsible for education are dissapointing to many a Tanzanian. I suspect the government is too full of old, old men who pretend tightening the purse string to education but ulterior motive is to get trip to India or elsewhere out of country for annual medical checkup.

The Guardian article...

Abolishing boarding schools at our own peril

2009-02-09 10:21:19
By Issa Mcholo Omari

The abolition of boarding O`level Secondary Schools will exacerbate quality deterioration, increase Inequities, and compromise our regional competitiveness.

It has transpired, with evidence, that from 2009, regions have been instructed to select and allocate deserving students only to day secondary schools, predominantly community and ward secondary schools. No schools with Form V and VI will receive Form One entrants anymore. Exceptions are made for the five so called special schools, about 8 technical schools, and 15 designated zonal secondary schools which enroll students with various disabilities such as visual and hearing impairments.

This is a major policy shift, with tremendous impacts, but it is curious as to why it is done so silently, or is it secretly. The reasons given for the shift are two:

First, it is said that the government has no money to feed boarding scholars, given the exploding enrolments.
Secondly, it is said to be a good strategy to open up space for the expansion of Form V and VI where the country is experiencing great constraints, especially for science and mathematics students.

However, both of these reasons are either not true or not strategic enough. First, it is not true that the government has no money to feed its own children, and for that matter, many parents have not failed to contribute to feeding their children. It has to be noted that Tanzania is dedicating only about 19 per cent of its total annual budget to education while neighbouring countries allocate between 25 and 30 per cent of their annual budgets.

Similarly, Tanzania utilizes only about 5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product while others are spending 6 – 7 percent of even larger GDP. Thus, it is not an issue of ability to pay for the education of our children but willingness to pay for it. It is an attitudinal thing which is quite pervasive for quite sometimes now. Our priorities are just skewed.

If the government can look for funds to bail our ailing and grossly inefficient parastatals, it can surely also look for funds to give our children good quality education. It is now firmly known or established that many children in developing countries are underperforming because of nutritional deficits. Thus, the state should be happy and keen to ameliorate this desperation. It is very possible for such costs to be happily shared rather than seeing these children as a burden. They are national assets for the future of this otherwise beautiful and greatly promising country.

It does not seem that the national political elite is aware of the fact that, for now, the educational system is suffering from a serious paralysis of stagnation and any policy shifts should be for resustation rather than exacerbation of the deterioration of the situation. The second reason regarding the expansion of Form V and VI is not strategic at all. It is expedience being substituted for good educational principles for educational development.

First, many of our schools are quite small so why not expand them to accommodate more A`level students, and in more appropriate structures specifically designed for that level of schooling. Alternatively, build new ones. In addition, there is a lot of synergy and economies of scale that accrue when A’level and O`level students school together, ranging from sharing scarce resources such as laboratories and some textbooks, modeling and tutoring, to the use of good teachers.

It is now firmly clear that there is a great shortage of good teachers in various key subjects in many countries, and the separation tend to saddle O`level teaching with mediocre and under-qualified teachers who will produce bad products for the A`level tier. Consequently, the good A`level teachers, especially in mathematics and sciences, end up doing remedial instruction rather than their true pitching.

However, the worst part of the policy shift is in the consequences. ll the data, over the years show that boarding government schools outperform all other categories of schools, except for the few Christian seminaries. For instance, in 2007, while 9.70 per cent of students in government secondary schools scored first class, only 2.9 per cent in community secondary schools got that grade.

The differences are basically due to key inputs such as quality teachers, textbooks, but most significantly, time use and nutrition in boarding government schools. Boarding scholars have more time to study.

Thus, the abolition of boarding schools is likely to negatively affect the quality of schooling outcomes which will have serious reverberating effects in all other types and tires of education in the country.

The equity impacts are even more worrying. It was settled legally in 1954 in the USA that different schools cannot be equal so any form of segregation is inherently unequal.

We also know from numerous studies that any school system which relies on community ability and willingness to pay is inherently inequitable since the communities greatly vary, both in welfare and motivations. Thus, children of the poor in their own community schools will never see light of the day as are doomed to perpetual failure.

Boarding schools facilitated cross breeding, and a window of opportunity for the poor to benefit from quality education. In addition, boarding schools were good for national unity and integration as children from different tribes socialised together from early in their lives.

More cleavages will emerge such as rural-urban disparities, religions seminaries disparities, and girls will be the greatest losers as are known to perform more poorly in community day secondary schools. They do their best in boarding and semi boarding schools.

Furthermore, it is self evident that children of the rich and more informed parents will never go to these day schools. Given the emerging rampant corruption in selection and placement of pupils, such kids will go to either the special schools or private ones.

In the final analysis, it is Tanzania`s competitive ability in the region which will be greatly endangered. Our concept of quality education, both at secondary and higher education level, is highly compromised.

Some universities are worse than glorified secondary schools.

Some secondary schools are in the same league—glorified primary schools!! The net effect, in the long run, is to produce poor human resources that cannot compete for jobs in the SADC and the East Africa Community, and who, in the labour market will have lower productivity indices, and thus making goods produced in Tanzania less competitive as well.

Tanzania needs to change and invest in the education enterprise more heavily and reverse current trends which are worrying indeed.
The last point that need to be made here is about the role of the state.

There is a dangerous but tacit inclination in Tanzania, to think that the private sector will bail out the state in the provision of education. This is a dream.

It can only complement but not be a substitute. To date the private sector is small and quite weak in quality assurance and control, resulting in substandard outcomes.

Data, the world over, suggests that education in most developing and developed countries belongs to the state.

One World Bank report in 1995 had the following data regarding state percentage share to the education enterprise: Canada (90.1); Denmark (99.4) Finland (92.3) UK (80.0); U.S.A (79.0) Holland (98.0) India (89.0) and France (80.0).

It was only in Haiti where the state share was 20 percent, but of course no country wants to be like Haiti where voodoo and ``jujumanship`` are more valued than science, technology, and education. Thus Tanzania is only neglecting increasing its share of the budget to education at its own peril. The abolition of boarding schools is surely a strong dose for a disaster. It should be reconsidered soon rather than later.

Issa Mcholo Omari is a Professor of Educational Psychology and Research at the University of Dar es Salaam

• SOURCE: Guardian

Tanzania and corruption: a run-away

From a blog quoting Sunday Observer article:

I posted some stuff on the above in some of my earlier messages such as this one. Nothing has happened on the home ground regarding the matter, it's life as usual. But media and British Govt investigators have kept right up.

Here we are, right in the midst of vigogo grab-grabbing, then living expensively from the plunder proceeds, and go brag-bragging in the circles of friends about his kids studying in American universities, four SUVs of latest models in his mansion garage, etc etc. and no-one seems to say anything except a briton thousands of nautical miles away (investigating fraud by british firm, at that; and in the course, opening up our can of worms). Even them the discussion takes form of gossips in blogs and online forums while Umma suffers.

With the global village of www, will the situation remain like this all the time? I doubt it.

My Wish to Obama: Supressing Arms Trade Will Reduce Conflicts

Obama came into the White House from afar, beating all odds. Indeed even before presidential race he had ascended into the Senate, which was odd-beating too.

Like any change, a change from the age-old pattern of US presidency naturally had to have its fair share of opponents (stereotyped by one bullish governor from a cold place). When it was obvious that this is the man America wanted, the population chunk in his support grew steadily until crescendo, demonstrated in Chicago and, later, DC during inauguration.

The contrast between Obama and his predescessor was as stark as vision when one gets outside into bright sunlit street from a windowless room. (I heard someone recounting his feeling on the BBC regarding former President Bush--GW, going something like, "With bush, we just had to live with him, just like some people live with cancer").

I join the thousands of bloggers who welcome President Obama and look upon him as a person Fate sent to correct the many wrongs of the US and the world. He starts the task facing an uphill task of tackling-

• reeling world economy;
• hate and suspicion of many against US
  
• worsening environmental crisis; and
• several localized armed conflicts.

We are already seeing real effort addressing the world economy and environment. Plus, one of the earliest executive orders signed was the closure of the Guantanamo jail, Bush initiative of locking in the suspected enemy.

The conflicts in the many places, however, are being fuelled by arms that roll out of some industrialized countries, including the US. They kill and maim thousands of innocent persons in what is referred to as wars, but indeed most of such conflicts are engineered to create and sustain markets of firearms and other fighting hardware.

I have read books by Le Carre, Forsyth and others which are very factual fictions. Give some hobo a few dollars, a couple of cartons new-smelling tunics and a dozen uzis, and you've succeeded starting a "liberation war". The brute who initiates such war never steps anywhere near the battleground, although he may teach "his boys" a few "patriotic" songs and crash courses to his boys (some of whom may be as young as 13) on how to take apart an uzi and ambush little girls going to school.

Without arms manufacturers (and remnants of cold war maybe) there would hardly be conflicts in many places. The arms and munition plants are military contracts shrouded with all the mysteries including operational costs that, instead of aiding failing economies, continue syphoning unaccountable dollars for "special operations". Those "operations" may mean, furnishing travel papers and return air ticket to some African warload to jet to some obscure European town to sign a contract.

How to carry on, I don't claim to have answer, but Team Obama may have something handy on the way--why, i just read on the newsfeed that catepillar are cutting workforce by 1500. What's better, producing a catepillar that drives construction industry and provides jobs to thousands or producing a tank that ...?

How my 2008 fared

We saw a new year drive into our lives, hang on there, and would drive on into history, leaving another year in place after 365 days. Today is the 24th of December, christmas eve. In 6 days time, this year shall make way for the other.
I look back at the occurences that stood out
The localhost and open source content management system
It's been said best things in life are free. Studying some forums and other web resources I "discovered" Xampp, Joomla and Moodle. The last time I was so excited was during compilation of my first FORTRAN codes.
Awardspace
This hosting service is without doubt the greatest whereby even with a free hosting account, the user is given lots of goodies. Frankly Awardspace drove me to acquire debit card account for making online payment where I got even better goodies.
Debit Card account
Some really good stuff is available for little payment on the Web, but is inaccessible if you don't own a means of online payment. Having acquired the powerful plastic card, I am now head and shoulder above an average crowd, and I like it. I'm able to enjoy a domain name like danielmakundi.com...
Windhoek
I attended an international conference organized by Information Society Technology for Africa, an EU-FP7 project. Held in Windhoek, Namibia for three days, I met many people, built new network of professional colleagues, and, yes, had a peek of South Africa from Joburg Airport during one day wait during transit there on way to Dar-es-Salaam.
Obama
The incredible happened. America said Yes to Barak Obama. I have an earlier post taking my hat off for Michelle Obama, and am repeating here that with the two in the White house, things can only go right, and may Gof bless them!
Albino deaths: The most deplorable
Here in Tanzania we have abject poverty mixing with ignorance and plain stupidity creating automatons of unbelievable actions. Armed with deception that organs from albinos (unfortunate brothers and sisters whose skins are without pigment that's resistant to sunshine, making them vulnerable to sunburn and skin cancers) could make them rich. Many albinos have been killed, others maimed. Thanks to public reaction, some arrests have been made by now.
Obituary
Hassan Shamsi, a workmate and one of the finest electrical artisans I've ever known.
Isaac Hayes, a voice like a rumble of thunder, a phenomenon in Shaft etc

Mabadiliko ya Makatibu wakuu

Saturday, 29 November 2008

KIKWETE AFANYA MABADILIKO (MAKATIBU WAKUU)

Rais Jakaya Kikwete amefanya uteuzi wa makatibu wakuu wapya, kuhamisha wengine na kuteua manaibu katibu wakuu wapya. Kwa sasa, Mgonja ambaye yuko katika likizo ya kustaafu, amestaafu sambamba na makatibu wakuu wengine watatu na Naibu Katibu Mkuu mmoja kati ya Agosti na Novemba mwaka huu. Katibu Mkuu Kiongozi Philemon Luhanjo katika taarifa yake Dar es Salaam jana, aliwataja wastaafu wengine ni Katibu Mkuu, Ofisi ya Waziri Mkuu Vincent Mrisho, Katibu Mkuu Wizara ya Ulinzi na Jeshi la Kujenga Taifa, Abel Mwaisumo, Katibu Mkuu Wizara ya Ushirikiano wa Afrika Mashariki, Bakari Mahiza na Naibu Katibu Mkuu Wizara ya Mambo ya Nje na Ushirikiano wa Kimataifa, Balozi Charles Sanga. Luhanjo alisema kutokana na kustaafu kwa makatibu wakuu na Naibu Katibu Mkuu huyo, Rais Kikwete amefanya uteuzi na uhamisho wa makatibu wakuu na baadhi ya manaibu makatibu wakuu. Aliwataja makatibu wakuu wapya ambao wote walikuwa ni manaibu katibu mkuu ni Ramadhani Khijjah anayemrithi Mgonja, awali akiwa Naibu Katibu Mkuu Hazina. Wengine ni Dk. Florens Turuka anayekuwa Katibu Mkuu wa Wizara ya Habari, Utamaduni na Michezo, akitokea Wizara ya Viwanda, Biashara na Masoko; Joyce Mapunjo anayekwenda Wizara ya Viwanda, Biashara na Masoko, akitokea Maendeleo ya Miundombinu na Andrew Nyumayo kusimamia Wizara ya Ulinzi na Jeshi la Kujenga Taifa, akitokea Ofisi ya Waziri Mkuu. Aliwataja Manaibu Katibu Wakuu wapya kuwa ni Dk. Phillip Mpango (Wizara ya Fedha na Uchumi) ambaye awali alikuwa Msaidizi wa Rais (Uchumi)-Ikulu, Selestine Gesimba (Wizara ya Elimu na Mafunzo ya Ufundi), akitokea Mkurugenzi wa Sera na Mipango ya Wizara ya Mawasiliano, Sayansi na Teknolojia. Mwingine ni Seti Kamuhanda anayekwenda Wizara ya Mambo ya Nje na Ushirikiano wa Kimataifa. Awali alikuwa Msaidizi wa Rais (Hotuba) Ikulu; na kabla ya hapo, alikuwa Mhariri Mtendaji wa Kampuni ya Magazeti ya Serikali (TSN), inayochapisha Daily News, Sunday News, HabariLeo na HabariLeo Jumapili. Katika uhamisho huo, Luhanjo aliwataja waliohamishwa na sehemu wanazotoka na wizara walizopangiwa katika mabano kuwa Peniel Lyimo (Ofisi ya Waziri Mkuu kutoka Kilimo, Chakula na Ushirika); Dk. Ladislaus Komba (Maliasili na Utalii kutoka Kazi, Ajira na Maendeleo ya Vijana) na Kijazi Mtengwa (Wizara ya Kazi, Ajira na Maendeleo ya Vijana kutoka Habari, Utamaduni na Michezo. Wengine ni Mohammed Muya (Kilimo, Chakula na Ushirika kutoka Mambo ya Ndani; Patrick Rutabanzibwa (Mambo ya Ndani kutoka Maji na Umwagiliaji); Dk. Stergomena Tax (Ushirikiano wa Afrika Mashariki kutoka Viwanda, Biashara na Masoko); Wilson Mukama (Maji na Umwagiliaji kutoka Afya na Ustawi wa Jamii); na Blandina Nyoni (Afya na Ustawi wa Jamii kutoka Maliasili na Utalii). Aidha, Luhanjo alisema rais amemhamisha Naibu Katibu Mkuu Fanuel Mbonde kutoka Ofisi ya Waziri Mkuu (Tamisemi) kwenda Ofisi ya Waziri Mkuu. Katibu Mkuu Kiongozi alisema uteuzi wa makatibu wakuu na manaibu katibu wakuu hao unaanza mara moja.
(Source - Colleague's blog)

Mramba-It didn't have to come to this

Yesterday, a bombshell of political news shook the country: Basil Mramba, an iconic respected MP and former minister of various portfolios appeared in court (along with another former minister called Yona) charged with several counts of abusing office.
Now, Mramba earned much respect as a leader who delivered. Perhaps his most outstanding performance was that of being the first executive of the Small Industries Development Organization, an institution that grew and achieved a lot.

How did it happen? How would a man of Mramba's moral standing be caught in such a quangmire, have his systematically built reputation undone?

The likely explanation is, there seemed such confidence of untouchables who were much aware that they were not doing the right, moral thing - we all do have conscience, don't we? Here, then, we had my hero, Mramba, loyally supporting the boss man, Mkapa, who was termed, albeit wrongly by Father of Nation "Mr Clean". And getting reassured that nothing would go wrong.
It didn't have to come to the scenes above, that Kisutu court scenario, the big man himself sitting on a hard bench, not very different from the ones they sit willingly once per week every Sunday morning), and the cheering masses ("rubbering crowd" as O Henry would put it).

Did Mramba benefit financially from this abuse of office activities he is being charged with? Maybe, maybe not, but definitely he knew he was abusing power. What he was (wrongly) sure of was, he might be prosecuted for his actions.

The Alex Stewart Assayers scenario that was central to the accusations against Mramba as Financial Minister during Mkapa (at-CHOOOO!) era was largely unknown to the public. But the cheering crowds in the picture above most likely are those who remember Mramba reacting to protestations about Tz, a poor country, spending lots of foreign exchange to procure a totally unnecessary new presidential jet, publicly announcing a new jet for President would be bought no-matter what, even if it would lead to people eating grass. The jet deal, it would be found out later, was badly weighted, likely corrupt--that one and air traffic control radar.

Mramba-It didn't have to come to this.

This is what Africa needs

Why donors fear Kagame's war on graft


The Botswana Gazette

13.04.2005

http://www.gazette.bw/tbg_buhead2.htm

by Andrew M. Mwenda

  

Last week I was in Kigali, this time at the heels of a cabinet decision to impound all luxurious four wheel drive vehicles bought at government expense and driven by ministers, security and military chiefs, foreign experts and their local handlers. In a morning crackdown, all the big men and women of this republic woke up to find that police constables along the main roads were stopping and taking away their vehicles and leaving them to walk to office.

The international donor community, known all over Africa for its corrupt and profligate life styles which they indulge in the name of fighting poverty, was this time caught with their pants down. They claim to fight poverty while riding in luxurious four-wheel drive vehicles, sitting in opulently furnished offices, earning obscene salaries and living in executive mansions. In a bold act of defiance, Rwanda impounded even those vehicles belonging to donor projects. After cleaning his own government of corruption, he has now taken on the profligacy of the international aid industry and its experts are now scared.

In a discussion with President Paul Kagame, he told me that he had looked at some of the "poverty reduction" projects and they smelt bad. "There are projects here worth only $5m and when I looked at their expenses, I found that $1m was going into buying these cars, each one of them at $70,000.

Another $1m goes to buy office furniture, more $1m for meetings and entertainment, and yet another $1m as salaries for technical experts, leaving only $1m for the actual expenditure on a poverty reducing activity. Is this the way to fight poverty?" he asked as I shifted with glee in my chair.

Already, the government is auctioning these vehicles and so far has gotten over $3m from the sales. Mr Kagame has now issued a new directive, saying government should not purchase cars for its officials with more than 2,500 cc. But there is more: the government has placed a ceiling on mobile telephone expenses for all its ministers, military and security chiefs to 50,000 Rwanda Francs (Shs150, 000), and also ordered MTN Rwanda to cut off their international roaming access.

The directive also stops the holding of workshops, seminars and conferences on poverty reduction in posh hotels like the Intercontinental, Mille Collins etc, insisting they should be in government owned buildings at no cost. The order also requires all government ministries; departments and agencies to move from privately owned buildings where they pay high rents to government owned buildings.

I told Kagame that whereas some of the most highly skilled Africans are going to Europe and North=2 0America to clean streets and toilets, our development partners send us Œtechnical experts on these projects at individual monthly salaries of between $10,000 and $20,000, a salary that could pay 12 Africans of better training and experience and save this continent from severe brain drain. In fact, most of these so-called experts are a miserable, career-stranded lot in their own countries, but are dumped in Africa and other poor countries through foreign aid protocols.

Donors never shy from lecturing our governments on fiscal frugality, yet their aid driven projects are the most profligate. Of total project aid to Uganda's ministry of Health, 93 percent of it goes into technical assistance (i.e. salaries and allowances for the experts) and overheads (i.e. four wheel drive vehicles, opulent office furniture, computers, stationary, tea and cakes).

Only a miserable 7 percent of this aid goes into purchase of drugs. Now you understand why, in spite of a huge health budget, our people cannot find drugs in hospitals. We in the media have been shouting ourselves hoarse against government corruption. It is time to expose the worse forms of profligacy, which forces our governments to pile up huge sums in debt.

In fact, of the total money from the Uganda government budget to the ministry of Health, 98 percent reaches its intended beneficiaries, clearly showing that in spite of its corrupt ways, the government of Uganda is a better evi l than donors. Of total project aid to Uganda, 68 percent goes into overheads and technical assistance. Only 32 percent to its intended beneficiaries.

A few weeks ago I presented the above facts to President Yoweri Museveni and asked him to act. My heart bleeds to say he is so deeply discredited by his inability to tackle corruption in his government, and his own profligate public administration expenditure that he lacks moral authority to take on donors.

The other reason is that his regime lives off this coalition of mutual deceit with donors that both are fighting to eradicate poverty in Uganda. Kagame, however, is able to act boldly because he occupies a moral high ground in fighting corruption, has ensured fiscal frugality and also because his government pursues strategies of survival - not necessarily dependant on donor approval.

In Rwanda, ministers and other high ranking public officials resign and or are fired by the week because of allegations of corruption. From the lowest clerk in a government office to the most powerful minister or military or security chief, no one is immune to jail when they steal; none close to the president, none distant from him. You steal, you get jailed.

If there is some prima facie case that you stole, but there isn't not enough evidence to convict you in a court of law, then you are asked to resign or get fired. What a tough guy this Kagame man is!!

Tanzania Higher Education Students Loans

The system of issuing loans for students to pursue higher education--who would pay back later when employed or running businesses--is nothing new, being applied in many countries.

To Tanzania it was an introduction of change that was very much unwanted: the new loanees would ask, "why us?, Why did our parents etc receive free education but not us?" The question has a convincing answer, so the loan thing came to be accepted as a way of life, an expense like foodstuff and fuel.

The problems of implementation began. After the first faltering steps, it was apparent that the numbers going for loans was overwhelming. Off the list went those pursuing postgraduate studies. Yet the applicants were more than budgeted funds. The Board morphed its criteria by limiting beneficiaries to only those who got Division One. This was not the minimum qualifications set out by the universities, by the way. It proved disastrous--aspirants of tough UG courses such as Meidicine and Engineering figured the chances of scoring Div I with good grades in those subjects, and opted to study for easier humanities subjects. Long-term effect? A nation with short supply of professionals but full of "artists"--lawyers, linguists, historians, librarians etc etc. As employment chances are dwindling compared to number of graduates, one of the alternatives to employment would be enterpreneurship, and who would be in a better position to start an enterprise than a professional?

Then came the concept that the Board would be in a position to help more students if those with well-to-do families could receive less loans (60 - 80 percent of total financial requirement for tuition, subsistence etc). Based on a set of questions on the application forms, the Board would decide who would receive 100, 80 or 60 percent. The system seems flawed, likely from the massive paperwork resulting from the applications, and actual loans are not reflecting on true student social status. Study they must, so some students have been known to pay for the tuition using their subsistence allowances and going around campuses like beggers or surviving on unrealistic rations.

The Board had also figured a trick of making money on the side off the prospective students. They would charge TZS 10,000 (a bit less than USD 10) as a processing fee for every application form submitted. The trick lies here: the applications are required to be submitted well before the high school results are out, with candidates not even sure whether they'll meet minimum qualifications to enroll. This money is not refunded. It is a cruel little scheme, because all parents think their child is a genius if there was any genius in the world, and would gladly pay for the fee. If some study were to be done, it would reveal the Board has been making a bundle this way.

Another problem that featured around blogs/forums awhile back was that of one student being listed for lone in as many as 4 different institutions. So manual is the processing system of applications that they allow such error arising from multiple applications.

It therefore came as no surprise when students from a number of universities and colleges rose as one protesting against partial loan that has lead to much anxiety, insecurity, and more. A little girl who left her upcountry home to come pursuing a degree courses might find herself unwillingly drawn into love affair and possible dire consequences included STIs and single motherhood.

The state organs rolled anti-riot gear to campuses, donned face masks and fired tear gas at the kids. Even as this was happening in one campus, the other were coming onboard. One by one the institutions closed and students sent home. This was after the Minister in the troubled Ministry of Education had issued an announcement on media, "All students should be in their classrooms tomorrow at 7 a.m." I reflected during my entire higher education stint of several years if there had ever been a timetable where one should be in class at 7 a.m., I drew a blank. And this gentleman is a professor, no less!

I am throwing my lot with the protesting students:

• the 7 a.m. ridicule stated above is part of it.
• the other reasons is the apparent unwillingness to refuse acting by logic, through negotiations between students government and the responsible ministry.
• I also am pretty convinced that the responsible ministry has not sought funds realistically to cater for bigger enrolment and hence more loans. We know how co-operating taxpayers can be towards a good cause. Road toll levy on fuel pump sales helped building kilometers of roads. similar levying could be aimed at boosting the loans pouch--several people would like to do their postgrads if loans were availed to them, and most students who met minimum qualifications to enrol would like to do just that.
• Tanzania is the last in East Africa region in tertiary institutions enrolment figures. What did other country do to achieve that, while they all have less populations compared to that of our country?

Obama US President-elect: Long way coming...

Racism is an old-fashioned fad. The few who still clutch it could be regarded as peculiar. Possibly, looking at history of such persons it might be proved that their minds were warped by teachings of older generations (parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, their "role models"-ugh!). This sad chunk of humanity isn't much different from children who are afraid of spiders.

Black persons have been prominent world over for a long time. Those in sports has a following of a multitude of fans. Jesse Owens, Mohamed Ali, Arthur Ashe, down to today's Brian Lara and Tiger Wood. Entertainment world has Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy and a million more.

When a black person does a good turn, reporting of such story carefully shrouds anything about his origins, his colour. A Tanzanian colleague working in Silicon Valley some three years ago was awarded an information technology patent, something about routers, IP and DNS (computer jargon). We only got to know about it because of email forum with a large following of Tanzanians in diaspora. When a black person makes a hiccup, the world will hear about it. At about the time of patent I just described, another Tanzanian had slaughtered a couple of goats in his apartment in the US, some neighbour rang the cops from the noises the goats made, and prompt arrests were made. The story hit the wires and was all over the place about an African from Tanzania who murdered goats in cold blood showing high degree of cruelty to animals. Some goats that had not yet been slaughtered were "rescued".

Now, by Americans deciding solidly to elect Mr Obama, I can only say, yes, the playing field is getting level. And it is not merely campaigning for one year by Camp Obama. The trail leading to thawing of sinful souls from the days of slavery was long, hard, disherartening. With occasional spikes like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, time moved steadily on towards Obama 2009.

The tiles on that road include Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Richard Roundtree, Diana Ross, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Isaac Hayes, LeVar Burton, all. Any person of colour that threw in their lot to receive recognition of the World. Not limited to America too. We have had Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Asha-Rose Migiro, Olushegun Obasanjo, Miriam Makeba (recently deceased, RIP). African soccer stars world over has done a black man proud over years.

I'm feeling good. Things will never be the same again. The Change We Need Is Here!

Recent history: The Great Sarcoz-Palin Phone Conversation

Mech Eng University of Dar-es-Salaam class of 86

Came across this precious print I'd scanned sometime back and all but forgotten about it. I am sharing it with the World. At that time I was six and twenty years of age, and no-one would have told me there would be time when I'd shave off my Afro, liked it so.

This picture was taken at the Silversands Hotel where the class had gone to hold a party just after finishing the final university exams. Every person on this day had something on his mind, because the results were not out yet, but they would be in the course of a day or two.

Anyways there was a happy ending, we all passed, no-one repeated a year, no-one was discontinued. As was almost habitual in those days, Mechanical class was all men, although no law barred women from choosing Mech Eng.

I guess what threw a scare to most of them was the story of grinding hard work of design class where sometimes we would spend the whole night standing on drawing boards working frantically for design visa. Visa? Yeah. Visa.

Maybe these days of SolidWorks and AutoCAD the toil has lessened. I'd like some latter-day Mech Eng Udsm graduate to comment on this...

Determination is it! Kudos Freddy Makundi

Let the world hear it, man!

My cousin, Frederick is in real estate by profession, holding a responsible position in a company that has branches in all regions of Tanzania.

That didn't deter him from pursuing what he had a craving for: go for a Laws degree.

The travail of squeezing study time in a tight workday and burning midnight oil paid dividends, and on Saturday 25 October 2008 he climbed up the podium to receive his LLB, an award from 4 years of hard work.

A reporter at the Biafra, Kinondoni grounds of the Open University of Tanzania caught this emotional scene of Freddy's daughter about to decorate his dad. This photo appeared on The Sunday Citizen of 26 October.

After graduation, in the evening when we gathered to toast Fred the winner, a few speeches were given, all aimed at encouraging all in the family and beyond to value education and pursue it in earnest, because in today's world education is everything, acquiring training in one's area of competence is necessary, must.

Michelle Obama, you done me proud, Ma'am

I did not watch the Larry King Live interview myself. I wish, though that I had. I read about it on the NY Times.

Now talk about a lady, here is one. Despite all the slime the Republicans had been throwing in against Barack Obama, you'd expect this lady to bristle and rattle. But to the contrary! I particularly liked the sense in her saying, “You can’t tear up the game so much so that, you know, you don’t leave people something to come back to,” she said. “You know, we’re going to need John McCain, we’re going to need Cindy McCain, we’re going to need independents and Republicans working hard to fix this crisis.”

I salute you, Ms Obama, You are going to be one great First Lady.

Tabora fatal recklesness

October 1 marked Idd el Fitr, a Moslem celebration of ending the month of Ramadhani where the faithful do fast for 28 moons. In Tanzania that day and following one are public holidays. These days are marked with overdressing, overeating and overdrinking in many communities. Dance hall reap, confectionery retailers alike. Fights and road accidents in the two days are commonplace.

What happened in Tabora is out of proportions, though. A dance hall was crammed with kids for afternoon boogie. It is said the capacity of that hall is 150, but on that eventful day, October 1st, it is said to have been packed with more than 1000!

Then something must have gone very wrong, but at the end of the day 19 kids were declared dead from suffocation. It would seem someone locked the dancehall entrance and drifted away for fun elsewhere when kids were having good time, then when air supply couldn't cope with close-packed kids, there may have been screams that were interpreted as fun itself. It seems after a while the place went eerily quiet--the younger ones (7 year olds were the youngest of victims, oldest were 14) slipped into unconsciousness. This may have been interpreted by their siblings as slumber before things grew worse. Meanwhile all were apparent prisoners here, the gatekeepers commonly referred as "bouncers" nowhere nearby.

I have heard how a person rescued from near-death caused by air foulness explains afterwards of having dreamed of happily floating around before being resusciated. Same stories were on papers, given by survivors who were interviewed. Three of the kids who perished were from one family, survived by recently-widowed father. I expect the bouncers who caused this have an explanation to give to Tanzanians.

It was a week. Palin blah-blahhed her way out of the VP debate (that I had hoped would see the end of her), Fosset crash site was discovererd, Tabora families grieved.

Palin on GOP Ticket and Murphy's Law

I'm an African living in Africa. However I'm following the buildup to US election with keen interest because the US is not just any nation: whatever is happening in the world's most powerful nation is the concern of everybody, especially us, friends of the US.

Sarah Palin materialized into the campaign on GOP ticket. Her high points include being a hockey mom, barracuda basketballer, moose hunter who can dress a carcass singlehanded (Tarzan Girl, huh), a mother of five. She was mesmerizing during her (it now is apparent, well-rehearsed) acceptance speech.

Since then, the true colours started emerging. And what would you expect from the above wilderness résumé? She's what I'd rank as below average in academics, like the Wiki Answers graphic bares to the world...

With Palin on the ticket, McCain is likely to lose the elections more than any other thing that may influence the outcome of elections. However, tables may turn any day and drown Dems ticket, or place the GOP in a comfortable perch.

Then Murphy's Law says pushy Sarah, skinner of mooses, fisher of salmons, may just as easily step into the Oval Office and rule America. That is, should anything go wrong with McCain (not that I'm praying for that but a hundred things can go wrong, natural causes that shall incapacitate him) the US constitution then take its course, setting Palin smack into the White House.

This moment of uncertainty couldn't have picked a wronger time-housing credit crunch, stock markets poised to come down crashing, Taliban building strength like a cyclones, and cyclones wreaking havoc all over the place. And America fighting wars in far away land.

The October 2 debate of VP hopefuls is likely to finish business for Palin, but if she stays on the ticket, there's a worrying time ahead with her trigger finger on the nuclear bomb switch.

Technology Crescendo

The past few days have seen what looks like a major change of affairs in the technology arena.

• Sandisk, holders of IP for nand flash drives, were doing the only too logical thing-placing media on micro-sd card with a USB sleeve to plug it into players. Now, micro-SD is a tiny weeny thingy no bigger than a SIM-card, but sizes as big as two gigabyte are in existence. Many phones have microSD slots, so it is nothing new, only placing of media such as music and videos in place of (ungainly) CDs and DVDs--all of five and a quarter inches diameter whose surface you can place a hundred micro-SDs which are even slimmer.
• Google teamed up with T-mobile to announce the coming of G1, a Google cellphone widely seen as a rival to much successful Apple's I-phone. Its build is no run-of-mill imitation of existing cellphone-it's got retractable querty keypad and a trackball. Some tech enthusiast has placed the two rivals side-by-side and compared them here. (if this link ever goes stale, ping me, I have saved the text somewhere.
• Like a powerful but aging elephant whose molars can no longer chew enough twigs to drive its huge body, therefore slowly starting to waste away, Microsoft have lately been trying to run catch-on (gaming, search) and not so successful upgrade (vista). Plus, the man whose name is synonymous with Microsoft, Bill Gates, recently retired early. If it weren't for shareholder, Microsoft trustees could have just convened and retired the titan of technology successes whose time has come, like a general who won many wars but has at last shown all the signs of aging.
• One of my recent posts was my concern about the European scientific project dubbed LHC. Something went wrong and they had to halt their experiment: about a ton of liquefied helium liberated itself back into atmosphere where it had been abducted from, rendering the superconducting magnets not so super--Talk of biblical Babel tower.

BBC's perspective of Zimbabwe power-sharing agreement. LOL!

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Another brick off the wall: RIP Wright of Pink Floyd

If people in the Afterworld do access Internet, Dear Claus Flieger (RIP), here comes your friend and mentor. I do remember how we had been bound by our mutual liking of Pink Floyd music.

It's strange that today I felt moody since morning, playing Crazy Diamonds over and over again, remembering Syd Barrett (whom, hopefully, Claus, you met out there when you joined your ancestors some five years ago). Must have been telepathy or some other superpower communicating with me... maybe you, Claus. Everything became clear upon reading the news story below.

BBC story...

Floyd founder Wright dies at 65

Wright (right) wrote songs on albums including Dark Side Of The Moon

Pink Floyd keyboard player and founder member Richard Wright has died aged 65 from cancer.

Wright appeared on the group's first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, in 1967 alongside lead guitarist Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and Nick Mason.

Dave Gilmour joined the band at the start of 1968 while Barrett left the group shortly afterwards.

Wright penned songs on classic albums including The Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here.

His spokesman said: "The family of Richard Wright, founder member of Pink Floyd, announce with great sadness that Richard died today after a short struggle with cancer.

"The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this difficult time."

He did not say what form of cancer the self-taught keyboard player and pianist had.

Live 8

Wright, a founder member of The Pink Floyd Sound - and other previous incarnations including Sigma 6 - met Waters and Mason at architecture school.

Wright rejoined Pink Floyd for the London Live 8 concert in 2005

Pink Floyd achieved legendary status with albums including 1973's The Dark Side Of The Moon, which stayed in the US album chart for more than a decade.

Wright, known as Rick earlier in his career, wrote The Great Gig In The Sky and Us And Them from the album.

Waters left the band in 1981, performing his last concert at London's Earls Court.

Wright, together with Gilmour and Mason, continued to record and tour as Pink Floyd during the remainder of the 1980s and into the 1990s, releasing their last studio album - The Division Bell - in 1994.

In 2005, the full band reunited - for the first time in 24 years - for the Live 8 concert in London's Hyde Park.

Large Hardon Collider: what if??

GOOGLE MARKING THE EXPERIMENT STYLISTICALLY ON THEIR SEARCHPAGE ON 10 SEPT 2008.------>

CERN, European Research Institution is today undertaking an experiment meant to discover what might have not be discovered in nuclear physics as at now. What'll you get when you break a proton by smashing protons into each other while moving at the speed of light?

For that research they have been building a huge hoop of 23 kilometre circumferences where protons race by being propelled by strong magnetic fields supplied by superconducting magnets chilled by liquid helium.

Here's what in the past has been described as Deathwish, or Curiosity of Cat; or Pandora's Box: a consortium of the best of brains from several countries in the world are doing something whose outcome is unknown. Proton is a positively-charged smallest particulate matter that, we have been all along considering as indivisible. When two protons smash upon each other at ~2c speed (that is, two particles each moving at almost the speed of light) one of the expected outcome is breakage of unbreakable, forming another hitherto unknown particle (call it makundon or demiroton so). The other outcome may be fusion of two protons into a particle twice the mass of proton (call it biproton or so). Now, here's trouble. This particle of twice the mass of proton may exert such a strong attractive force that will result into other protons being attracted and fusing onto the "biproton" forming an even bigger particle as each piece of mass joins the orgy. The result may be a black hole whereby our earth shall collapse with the instance of a punched baloon, with moon, solar system, galaxy etc to follow.

When that happens it will be so quick and painless, so earthlings needn't worry about it. Plus, there won't be anywhere to go. Since universe came out of big bang, it will all come in together in a big whoosh, and there shall be peace and quiet commonplace when you have absolute zero temperature and a particle of negligible dimensions but weighing one Universe: until such time that there shall be anoter big bang (zillions of centuries from today) followed by evolution etc. If life was an accident, this week shall be the end of life and no one to tell the story.


Bye, fellow earthlings, should the experiment go WHOOOOSH!

Chrome - yet another browser, but from Google, no less...

I've come to be so accustomed to Mozilla's Firefox browser to the point I'd thought, hey, this is an ultimate browser. I've gone around preaching it to colleagues and cybercafe owners, carried installation file in my thumb drive for anyone to make use of.
It was therefore with surprise when I heard that google were rolling out their own browser. Now Google have rolled out many products, they are all outstanding--from SketchUp to Picasa to Gmail etc. With a browser to keep up with their record of producing winners, I started feeling sad that I'd have to move on and leave the browser I'd grown to like.
I downloaded and installed Chrome beta for feel. Immediately I knew I'll keep on with Firefox, at least for the time being--here are my reasons:

1. Chrome could not be installed on Windows 2000 and earlier versions. Now, my favourite OS is Win2K. Firefox could install even on Win98, tab browsing and all. In a typical Third World locale like Tanzania, we still have loads of PIIs and PIIIs running Win98SE and Win2K, therefore it is a serious observation.
   
2. My PC has this necklace of RSS feeds bookmarks that I regularly scour during my typical of workday (Google News, BBC News, Channel Register, My blog etc). I didn't see an obvious way of placing live bookmarks on Chrome.
   
3. Mozilla has sooo many supporters, these over time have developed ingenious addons and extensions making life quite easy. With Chrome it is going to take a while coming to that.

Recently on this blog I was critical of Cuil search engine that was out to challenge Google. I hope to find more reasons to prefer chrome, but maybe that's the way life goes, some things have to be dropped over time. Like when I had to scrap my tiny notebook, Compaq Contura Aero 486 on the day I installed Chrome 9/4, 2008: that will be the subject of another post.