Tanzanian U-turn in farming

Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania is to be the first state university in East Africa to introduce demand-driven degrees. It also plans to scrap courses that are not market-oriented and offer graduates few employment opportunities.

The reorganisation takes place in collaboration with the Agricultural University of Norway between now and 2005.

Funding is via Norad, the Norwegian Development Agency, which had been the main donor to Sokoine since 1984.

So far Norad has contributed NKr78.5 million (Pounds 6.2 million) towards curriculum reform and restructuring of faculties and departments in the next two years.

Sokoine vice-chancellor Anselm Lwoga said: "The university will discard the supply-driven approach in its education programmes in favour of practical training."

The about-turn in strategy results from a radical change in the graduate labour market and the shift from public to private-sector demand and self-employment.

The government has stopped employing university graduates outside education and health. "Jobs in public service are hard to get, even after posts fell vacant by natural attrition," said Peter Ndemu, research and planning director at the higher education ministry.

Breaking away from the past, faculties and departments are introducing more holistic and interdisciplinary courses in agriculture and forest development. Sokoine is the only university in Tanzania that offers degrees in agriculture, veterinary medicine and forestry.

The forestry faculty has changed to the forestry and nature conservation faculty. Other faculties and institutes have introduced courses in agricultural and natural resource management practices, research and continuing education.

Lornst Finanger, Norad institutional development specialist, said the aim is to transform Sokoine into a regional centre of excellence in agricultural studies and research.

In the next seven years, the Agricultural University of Norway will mount a big staff development programme for Sokoine. Lecturers will be granted scholarships to study for masters and doctoral degrees in Norway.

Lars Christensen, team leader of the Norwegian mission to Sokoine, said:

"Overcrowding will be avoided at undergraduate level, while university library and college farms will be upgraded."

Norway will help towards textbooks, other education and laboratory materials, and maintenance. The communication system will be overhauled. Undergraduates will also be expected to undertake non-credit computer courses.

"The intervention will change Sokoine from that of supplying manpower to the public sector into a dynamic institution capable of improving the food security, environmental protection and socio-economic status of Tanzanians," said Professor Lwoga.

Sokoine is a small university of only 1,200 undergraduates. But whereas postgraduate programmes have nearly collapsed elsewhere in East Africa, Sokoine awarded 156 masters and 15 PhD degrees between 1990-97.

Analysts are still worried about how Sokoine will sustain itself without donor funds. So far donor funding for Sokoine has surpassed government spending on the university. In 1996-97 it was more than 50 per cent of the total Sokoine budget.