Tanzania: Public statement on the univeristy charter

UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM ACADEMIC STAFF ASSEMBLY

UDASA’S PUBLIC STATEMENT ON THE PROPOSED UNIVERSITY CHARTER AND THE RECENTLY ANNOUNCED TOP POSTS OF UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP

Members of the University of Dar es Salaam Academic Staff Assembly (UDASA) (drawing representatives from UCLAS and MUCHS), held an Extraordinary General Assembly (EGA) meeting on 10th September 2006 to deliberate on the Charter of the University of Dar Salaam that was tabled to the University Council on 17th March 2006 for approval and eventual submission to the Government for endorsement and passing, as per Universities Act of 2005 requirements. The document that was tabled was prepared by the Legal Unit under the directives and Terms of Reference provided by the University Administration. It would be the main constitutional document of the University, setting out the Vision, Mission, the Intellectual tasks and the Social Responsibility of the University. The Charter would establish the basic structures of administration and academic oversight. The UDASA representative sitting in the Council as an invitee objected to the tabling of the Charter, as its preparation process had not been democratic, since it did not involve fully the members of the University community. The Council decided that UDASA, the workers organization RAAWU and the students’ organization DARUSO should consult their members and submit their views by 25th March 2005, short of which the drafted Charter would be considered acceptable and would be approved by the Council. A special meeting of the Council to handle this matter was scheduled for 5th April 2005.

UDASA, RAAWU and DARUSO submitted their views on time. In view of this, the Council meeting was deferred to 20th April 2006 to give the Legal Unit time to incorporate their views. It was in this context that UDASA decided to hold a meeting on the above mentioned date. For UDASA, it had become apparent that the University Administration had already made decisions on what the University should be and how it should be structured. Therefore, the input that they were required to make would be considered subject to the Terms of Reference the Legal Unit had been provided with. The University had already hired a foreign multinational company to advertise, select, interview and propose the suitable candidates to the Council for recommendation to the Chancellor on who should hold the posts of Vice Chancellor and three Deputy Vice Chancellors. The positions of three Deputy Vice Chancellors are being created for the first time in this University and going by the advertisements, it makes the administration rather than the academic (students and academic staff) the University: it makes the University heavily administrative, bureaucratic and top-down in its decision-making process. It is reinforcing fourfold the dominance of the administration, an aspect which has been rejected over the years since 1970 when the University of Dar es Salaam was established.

Members were of the view that the undemocratic procedures that had been used to draft the Charter, together with the problems in the Charter itself emanated from the fact that the Universities Act of 2005 which was made to apply to all universities — public and private - had some fundamental flaws. These were pointed out by the members of the various universities, including UDASA in April 2005 to the Parliamentary Social Affairs committee. Unfortunately, the Bill became an Act without incorporating the views of the academic community that aimed at defending the role of the public universities in the advancement and transmission of knowledge and service to the people of Tanzania and Africa in a context where academic freedom and social responsibilities of academics prevail. Clearly, therefore it was the expectation of the University community as a whole (the Faculty, Students and Workers) that the making of the Constitution would involve them fully; that there would be a broad discussion and debate taking stock of the last forty years of the University’s existence; drawing lessons from history and charting out the new future of this important institution in the life of our people. But this was not to be.

Members reminded themselves of the fact that the University of Dar es Salaam is a public institution which is accountable to the people of Tanzania, and therefore, whatever transformations that may be introduced must take into account their interests. They recalled the fact that the University College of Dar es Salaam, out of which the University of Dar es Salaam was established, came into being a few months before independence. Together with the National Flag and National Anthem, the University represented the third symbol of the country’s independence: the right of the people of Tanzania to think for themselves. Since then the University has been an important centre of generating and transmitting knowledge; a site of the struggle of different ideas and the mirror reflecting the hopes, fears and aspirations of the people of Tanzania and Africa. The University Act of 1970 stipulated the objectives of the University which, among other things, emphasised the role of the University to preserve, enhance and transmit knowledge for the benefit of the people of Tanzania, to create a sense of responsibility in the young people towards their country and people and to promote learning and the pursuit of truth. For the next two decades the University became a centre of not only learning but of great debates on the country’s development and the future of the African Continent. Leaders and scholars from all over Africa, and indeed the world, including liberation movements, came to the Hill to share ideas and participate in debates. The University of Dar es Salaam became one of the most renowned universities on the African continent.

The 1970 University Act had introduced appointative rather than democratic principles. This Act was constraining in that it limited the transmission of knowledge and research within the confines of the principles of socialism “acceptable to the people of Tanzania”. It thus removed all notions of academic freedom and respect for scholarship which such an institution required. Thus, the objectives of the University already determined the subjects to be taught, the content of the courses, the methods of teaching, the manner in which the University should be organized, and the relations with the society and the state. The Act marked the beginning of state and bureaucratic hegemony over the University. Power at the University was decidedly shifting from the faculty to the administrators. Suddenly, the administration had become the University and the Chief Administrative Officer was reigning supreme. There had been hardly any debates when the Bill for the Act was being prepared, and the University Community was only marginally involved, through a Visitation Committee. Within the University members of staff and students struggled to democratize the structures of administration and develop most advanced forms of imparting knowledge. The struggles were not easy and many a student and staff had to make sacrifices. The democratic struggles on the Hill eventually produced the Dar es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility which became the model for the Africa-wide Kampala Declaration on Academic Freedom and Intellectual Responsibility in 1990 and 1991 respectively.

Members noted that for this new charter, even the nominal equivalent of a Visitation Committee has been lacking. They further noted that for the last 15 or so years as the country and the continent slid rapidly into neo-liberalism, the very existence of universities in Africa came to be questioned by International Financial Institutions and donors. Increasingly, spearheaded by the Administration, the University began to adopt neo-liberal agendas through the corporatisation of its structures and commodification/commercialization of its courses. Members of UDASA have over the years advanced alternative views against these disastrous transformations that have ended in lowering the standards of education and suffocating the process of knowledge advancement, production and transmission, but to no avail, given the undemocratic nature of the university and bureaucratic hegemony in all processes.

After long deliberation, members of UDASA together with the representatives of RAAWU unanimously decided that they cannot be part of this very undemocratic, authoritarian, and top-down process of adopting the Charter of the University. They reminded themselves of the fact that the intellectual community owes it to the people of Tanzania to take a principled stand and its principled stand cannot be any other except on the side of the University. This is its social responsibility and intellectual vision. They expressed their indignation at the fact that after 45 years of the existence of the institution and independence of the country, the University Administration has gone as far as hiring a non-academic multinational business organization to assist in the appointment of the top administrators of a public institution; and that the same Administration had produced a Charter that reads more like a Memorandum of a commercial company than a Constitution of a University. Therefore they decided the following:

1. The proper procedure would be for the University Community itself and members of the public who have a stake in the advancement of education to discuss the principles and policy that should inform the Charter. This would include taking stock of the history of the institution and thus integrating in the Charter the intellectual and democratic achievements of the Community and the country in general. It would include renewing the pledge of the University Community to serve the People of Tanzania in their Vision of building a free, independent, democratic and socially just society.

2. Once the basic Principles are crystallized they would constitute the legal brief to the drafters to draft the charter. UDASA believes that with the oldest Faculty of Law in East Africa, UDASA members in that Faculty are perfectly qualified and committed to do this job without having to hire any team of technicians, by whatever name they are called.

3. Therefore UDASA does not recognise the ongoing process of appointment of the top officials of the University and the Charter in its current form. It appeals to the University Council to defer the processes that have been set in motion until when a Charter that is acceptable and reflective of the academic interests and the aspirations and wishes of the people of Tanzania is in place. UDASA will set into motion its own process in co-operation with other sectors of the University Community and the public on the lines advocated in 1 and 2 above.

4. UDASA has an obligation to inform the People of Tanzania as to what is happening at their historically first University and therefore decided to issue this Statement. It further promises to continue to inform the People of Tanzania on the progress of this process and welcomes comments and participation from the members of the public.

Issued by

[signed]
Prof. Chachage Seithy L. Chachage
UDASA Chairperson
12th April 2006