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{
    "id": 686381,
    "url": "http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/686381/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 127,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ababu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 108,
        "legal_name": "Ababu Tawfiq Pius Namwamba",
        "slug": "ababu-namwamba"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I support this Bill in terms of the objective of streamlining operations of our institutions of higher learning, especially with regard to focusing more on academic programmes that contribute towards achieving our strategic economic goals as a country. We know that education, training and acquisition of skills are key to any economic take- off. For a country like ours that has set very ambitious goals in terms of Vision 2030, you want to put focused training based on serious university programmes at the center of that journey towards Vision 2030. There has been an explosion in the expansion of university education in this country, but that explosion has not been accompanied with a serious focus in terms of the quality of programmes. We have been more obsessed with numbers by merely talking about the number of universities and students that we are admitting to those universities. However, our attention has not focused on the quality and the kind of programmes that we are offering. In so far as this amendment Bill would in some way contribute to that, it is then worth our support. Talking about quality, let me also challenge our universities that this obsession with expansion, nearly growth, taking pride in the fact that we have more institutions and students without auditing the quality of the learning that we are offering, whether we are making a contribution to strategic economic goals of this country, may not be tenable in the long run. Looking at countries that have managed to successfully undertake economic take-offs, the so-called Asian Tigers, economies like Korea and Taiwan that have exploded to incredible levels, you see the effort and deliberate investments in education, especially programmes that are in line with strategic objectives of those economies."
}