IRDP Provides Special Courses To Improve Performance Of Civil Servants -

By Valentine Oforo, Dodoma

THE Institute of Rural Development Planning (IRDP) has embarked on a special program to roll out a number of different short courses meant to build the capacity of the workers from the central government, regional administration and local government, public institutions, as well as those from private entities.

The courses have specifically been designed for imparting the servants from the public and private sector with useful knowledge on how professional to execute their various daily roles.

The vital development in the country’s public service platform was unveiled by the IRDP Rector, Prof Hozen Mayaya during the 37th graduation ceremony of the institute’s Dodoma campus which saw a total of 6,362 (2,783men and 3,579 women) graduating from different programmes for the 2022/2023 academic year.

In his remarks, Prof Mayaya unveiled the said courses as preparation of strategy planning, corporate social responsibility, preparation and supervision of budgets, monitoring and evaluation of projects as well as cost and benefit analysis in projects.

Others, according to the IRDP’ head, including feasibility studies in projects and preparation of documents for strategic projects, risk management, population planning and land use planning.

“We had decided to initiate the rolling out of the courses after found it imperative to assist the civil servants, and others from the private sectors are handling their key roles more professionally in order to attain the targeted results, ” the Don expressed.

He added, the Dodoma-based varsity will regularly continue to improve the courses as per the market demand, as well as the changes in the country’s different sectors.

And pertaining to long- courses, Prof Mayaya informed that the varsity has developed and introduced at least six new course in order to quench a thirst of the ongoing challenges in the diverse employment market.

“During the 2022/23 academic year, we introduced the new six curricula which has been blessed by the National Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (NACTVET),” he said.

The courses in question, according to him, include Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Accounting and Finance, Urban and Regional Planning (URP), Geomatics, Human Resource Management and Environmental Health.

“Together with that, during the time we also managed to review a total of five curriculum, including Bachelor Degree in Business Planning and Management, Bachelor Degree in Planning and Community Development, Bachelor Degree in Population and Development Planning, and Bachelor Degree in Project Planning and Management,” he expressed.

The number of graduates at IRDP keeps on increasing year after year, according to Prof Mayaya. He noted that this year’s graduates have increased by 137 compared to 6,225 students who graduated in the 2021/2022 academic year.

The IRDP rector showered praises to the Sixth Phase Government led by President Samia Suluhu Hassan for continuously enabling the higher learning institution financially so that it can effectively and efficiently discharge its core businesses of teaching, academic consultancy and conducting research seeking to catalyse rural development in the country.

At the graduation ceremony, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Jenifa Omolo, said that the government was making varied efforts in helping parents/guardians to ease the burden of taking their children to school from the primary to university level.

“As you may be aware, currently the government is providing free basic education from kindergarten to form six and the government decided to ban all nuisance fees and contributions in primary and secondary school so that all eligible Tanzanians are accessing education,’’ she said.

In higher learning institutions, the PS said, the government had been increasing budget for the Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB) where as during the 2023/24 budget for loans, the government allocated 731bn/- compared to 570bn/- that was provided in 2022/23 financial year, which was an increase of 28percent.

She added that loan beneficiaries had equally increased from 177,777 in the last academic year to about 220,376, which was an increase of 23percent.

Earlier in his remarks, IRDP Vice-Chairperson of the council, Dr Samwel Werema said that because IRDP was the only higher learning institution responsible for preparation of experts for development planning in the country, the institution was well planned to continue observing professionalism and hardworking, so as to complement efforts by the government to help Tanzanians in various development endeavors.

“The council pledges to continue supervising this institute so that it can record a desired success and expected goals by observing the country’s laws, regulations and guidelines provided by the government and I want to state categorically that the institute’s management has always been cooperative to the council by implementing all the directives that seek to increase efficiency and service delivery,’’ noted Dr Werema in his speech read on his behalf by Dr Remidius Ruhinduka.