Introduction
This issue is an assortment of articles on education. Three areas are covered,
namely, primary education, university education, and education and the labour
market.
     , One of the educational aims of most governments today is not only to pro-
vide equal educational opportunity in which every child is given access to edu-
cation, but to make education qualitative so that those who are receiving .it will
be able to develop their innate intellectual potentials to the best of their abili-
ties. There are several reasons for this - political, moral and economic.
       On political grounds, there has been a growing demand, among parents
and their children, for education at all levels. Education has, therefore, become
a great political issue and no government dares, even in the face of other press-
ing national needs, deprive the people of this seemingly Indispensable 'consumer
good', In simple political phraseology, educational opportunity has become an
inherent and inalienable right of every individual, a phenomenon which Coombs
(1968) has described as a 'democratic imperative'.
       On moral grounds, it is argued that each child should be::given the oppor-
tunity to develop fully, and that only by a full use of hisfher talents can a child
grow into a mentally healthy adult (Musgrave, 1965). And on economic grounds,
the stress is on educational development as a condition for over-all national de-
velopment. In the modern world, no country can afford to neglect the-greatest
of its resources: the native talents of its population (Musgrave, ibd; Bereday,
1969).
       However, despite these egalitarian and democratic philosophies, 'both equal-
ity of educational opportunity and qualitative education continue to elude most
governments. But it is in the area of quality that the problem has become very
acute. For, it is easy to send every child to school without regard to conditions
or facilities, .but much more difficult to make them useful and functional there~
after through schooling without the necessary ingredients. We call to mind here
Illich's (1971) 'Deschooling Society'.
       The articles in. this issue of UTAFITI are therefore timely. They are essays
on quality written by education specialists and seasoned academics, and seek
to draw attention to issues that call for special attention in education: issues
on standards, issues on ideology, issues on curriculum, and issues relating to
education and employment.
       The first two articies by S.T. Mahenge and C.E. Okonkwo look at primary
education in Thnzania and Nigeria respectively. In the first arti~le: 'Some Educa-
tional cracks in Thntania Mainland Primary Schools in Terms-of Facilities and
Instructional Materials: A Case study of Mbeya and Iringa Regions in 1980',
Mahenge, working with the hypothesis that the efficacy pf any school system
depen.ds essentially On the resources available to the schools, examines the facil-
ities and instructional materials in primary schools in two regions ofThnzania.
8is aim is, using this case study, to fmd out to what extent the country is able
to realise its objectives of Education for Self-Reliance and the universaliation
of education, as enunciated in the country's education policies. His fmdings
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    are revealing: primary schools in the country are operating in a 'very critical
    situation'; 'some major cracks have developed which are enlarging year after
    year to the extent that it is now a crisis'; several school buildings are dilapidated
    or dilapidating; classes are over-crowded and congested; school libraries, work-
    shqps and domestic science rooms are non-existent or nearly so; teacher-pupil
    ratio is widening; and where classrooms are available, tables and chairs are
    lacking ..
          In a lamenting tone, the author calls for urgent attention to arrest the sit-
    uation:
            ... the teaching as well as learning conditions inside ,the primary school classrooms
           are so critical that there is a need to call for national emergency programme to allevi-
           ate the situation.
          In the second article, Okonkwo, on the basis of a content analysis of some
    primary school texts on social studies and mathematics in Nigerian schools asks:
    'Primary Education in Nigeria: What is it all about?' His answer is revealing.
    It shows, not only, how inappropriate the content of Nigeria's education is to
    the Nigerian school child and his/her social environment but, pOssibly, how 'mis-
    educating' the entire cont~nt of school education in the country may be to the
    learner.        Most of the issues discussed in the school texts:
           deal with situations outside the imaginative premise of the Nigerian primary school
           child. Thus, for the Nigerian child, education and life can never become one, since
           the books he reads extol no ideals of his society and paint no vjvid pictures of his home.
          Okonkwo calis for an urgent re-appraisal of the nation's entire education
    system to reflect the needs and aspirations of the nation, and for the writing
    of all class and reference texts for' use in primary and post-primary levels by
    only "cultural insiders'.
          The ljrticle by P,M. Uiswalo examines the impact of the recent (1974) Party
    Policy on Education, popularly known as the Musoma Resolution, on student
   personnel services at the University of Dar es Salaam. Upon this policy, admis-
 _ sion into the University has concentrated On adults and mature-age entry can-
    didates, in prefet;ence to fresh secondary s~po<?l leavers, with the resultant
    preponderance of mature entrants at the IDstItutlOn. In a comparison ofthese
    adult and .mature,.entry male students' to' their, fewer, direct-entry male counter-
    parts, Biswalo analyses the student's perceptions of the various student person-
    nel services offered at the university.: His findings provide insight into the needs
  .of adqlt students in universities andinto the differentials in perception between
    adults and young persons of the roles, 'and functions of higher educational in-
. stitutions .
 .        Language is inextricably bound up with education and learning. And in
    a multi-lingual context,' the situation could be complex; for"example, issues such
    as what language should be the medium of instructions in schools and at what
    level of the education system; what should be the felationship between the lan-
    guage. of instructions in school and the other languages, how should 'balance'
   ~ aChieved between thetp; how are these other !ang~~s to be ~ught, if they,
   ate to be taught at all, etc? are .often problematIc. WItness, for JDstance, what
   is happening in Nigeria's education system, with Isba, Hausa and Yoruba as
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indigenous languages and English as a 'foreign' or 'second' language in schools;
or indeed, in other multi-lingual countries of Africa like Malawi, Zambia, Zaire,
Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Ghana, etc. In Tanzania, despite the 'rise'
 of Kiswahili as the lingua franca, English has remained the medium of instruc-
tion in secondary schools and post~secondary institutions. This means that the
'Thnzanian students at these levels of education must have a certain degree of
competence in it to be able to follow the lectures in class, take notes, write es-
says, and read advanced texts, especially in specialist subjects.
       In the fourth and fifth articles, S. North and H.R. Trappes-Lomaxlook at
two aspects of the language situation in Tanzania, the former on language dex-
terity and academic success and the latter 011 'language management'. On the
 first, it has been established that there is a {;c.rrelation between language ability
and intelleetual development at the lower levels of edacation. Is this true also
 at the tertiary level? Sarah North tries to anHwer this question in her article 'Lan-
guage Proficiency and First-Year University Achievement'. Using a sample of
 first-year students of medicine and dentistry ~t the University of Par es Salaam,
she critically examines the hypothesis that proficiency in,English language en-
hances a student's academic performance at the university, or precisely, that "a
student's command of English (which to many Tanzanians is a second language
and to others a third or even fourth language) and the ability to use it effective-
lyas a tool for academic study is a crucial factor in his/her success at the Univer-
sity". Her conclusion is that language ability is a good predictor of academic
success.
       Trappes-l..omax's article derives from aColloquiumorganised        by the Insti-
tute of Education of the University of Par es Salaam on language management
in Tanzania, and the teaching of English at the primary level. Here, the two major
questions are: First, given the present functions of English in Tanzania vis-a-vis
those of Ki!,wahili (the country's lingua franca), at what stage in the primary
school curriculum should English teaching begm? Second, given also that En-
glish is no more the medium of instructions in primary schools and bearing in
mind the future roles primary schoolleavers are likely. to play in the country,
what sort or quality of English should be taught in these schools?
       These two articles are interesting in view of the controversies the language
problem has generated and will continue to generate in education in 'Thnzania
and in most other African countries where, in addition to their multi-lingual
nature, English is often not a first language for most children in schools.
       The last article, by J.C. Galabawa, on 'Schooling and the Labour Market ...'
looks at the school curriculum and unemployment problem in 'Thnzania. It is
often claimed that unemployment among schoolleavers arises, primarily, from
wrong curriculum in schools. Galabawa says 'no' to this; at least not in Thnza-
nia. Unemployment among school leavers, lle asserts, should not be viewed as
a problem resulting from the currioulum, hut rather in what goes on outside
the school, notably in the political economy of the country and the employ-
ment trends.in the labour market. For example, firstly, despite the stress on
agriculture and technical curricula in the country's schools, wage employment
trends in the country do not appear to favour the rural sector or manufactur-
ing. Secondly, the government's policy of creating job opportunities for young
people appears to be/concentrated in the unproductive sectors of the economy,
particularly, in the rapidly expanding central state bureaucracy. The effect of
this is: first, the increase of wage incomes without a corresponding increase in
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 produdion.ln     the long run, this depresses sUrPlusahd investment which would
 othe~wise, have combined with more labour and therefore an increase in job
 creatH?n. !,econdIy, the conc~ntration of jobs in the service sector implies that
 t~e skIlls In gre~test demand In the labour market are law, teaching, agministra-
 bon, sales, clencal and office work. In such a situation, the low credentials of
 primary schoolleavers means that they are left out.
       Therefore, he concludes, it would not be convincing to argue that the rea~
 son why so m!illy primary school leavets do not find employment is beJ,:ause
they have received the wrong sort of education.
      The last input in this issue are two book reviews by K.J. Mchombu and
A.a.M. Ishumi.Mc,hombu gives not just a synoptic overv,ew ofJIsh~!1l\'S book:
The Urban Jobless in Eastern Afric~~but also an anatomical expOSition of that
~d ...
      In the review of Z.E. 'LaW1lo'sbook:EducatiQn and Social Change in a Rural
Comlflunity,    A.a.M. Ishumi makes an analytical commentary on the colonial
advent in the 'Chagga country' and the aftermath.            _       ,
      Although there is little dispute concerning the role of education in modern
society, the problems of education have become an endless jutabow, particular-
1y among educationists. The search for quaIityc<,?n!inues.One of the mainob-
jectives of journals is to make available the results of research and of people's
thoughts. The articles in UTAFITI, to re-iterate the editorial policy of the jour-
nal, are dedieated to events and development. Therefore, as the search for qual-
ity in education continues, as the panacea and solutions to the numerous
problems of education are prescribed and propounded, we welcome comments
and ?dditions to articles in this issue.
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