The contribution of education for self-reliance to manpower development in Tanzania — A critical appraisal

This paper is an attempt to describe the nature and scope of educational provision in Tanzania since 1967. It focusses on the implications of educational policy for the development of manpower which would be suited to the satisfaction of basic needs in rural areas.Tanzania since 1967 is reportedly attempting to implement what amounts to a basic needs strategy of development in line with the declared socialist objectives of the Government.This strategy is essentially a mixture of poverty and employment oriented strategies directed at satisfying essential human needs in areas such as health, education, safe water, housing and sanitation, and food supply as well as other requirements for a fully productive life.Although the provision of education is itself a basic need, it is also a vehicle for the production of trained manpower which is essential to the effective implementation of the basic needs strategy in the other sectors mentioned above. This paper presents preliminary and tentative impressions of the relevance of Tanzania's educational system to the Government's objective of meeting the basic needs of its people as soon as possible.The paper is divided into four sections: educational philosophy in Tanzania, educational growth and development, manpower implications and theoretical models explaining the development of educational resources in Tanzania since 1967.It concludes that, where planning has preceded political decisions, large measures of success have been achieved, but that, overall, political expediency and haste have created substantial divergences between policy and practice.