Nyerere's postcolonial approach to education

Abstract

Julius Nyerere has had many detractors. He is, however, one of Africa’s best known and most revered post-colonial figures. A devout Catholic, son of a village chief in Butiama (Northern Tanzania) and a former school teacher in a Catholic school, Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922-1999) had an eventful life which saw him lead Tanganyika to independence in 1961, become its President and eventually become the first President of Tanzania following the unification of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964. Constantly projecting the image of someone who can lead by example, ”Mwalimu” (“teacher” in Kiswahili), as Nyerere was called, remained at the helm of Tanzanian politics even following his retirement as President. He was, until 1990, head of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (party of revolution), the party which grew out of the 1977 merger between Tanganyikan National Union ( TANU) and AfroShirazi, Zanzibar’s ruling party. Tanzania eventually witnessed the transition, under Nyerere’s successor as President, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, from a one party to a multiparty state. Many would regard Nyerere’s project of socialism for the East African country to have failed in material terms, as did capitalist projects in other African countries, for that matter. “A bunch of countries [in Africa] were in economic shambles at the end of the 70s. They are not socialists” Nyerere reminds us in a transcribed 1996 interview with an American correspondent (Nyerere, 1996). There are those who openly expressed their reservations concerning the viability of his socialist project for Tanzania. His policies have been praised in certain quarters and decried in others, as one can gather from the different and contrasting appraisals of his work, appearing in the international press, following his death towards the end of 1999. Many are those, however, who recognise Nyerere’s stature as a statesman and opinion leader. The country stood out, in comparison with other African countries, for its peaceful transition of power and for its lack of ethnic strife. He states, “Complete integration of the separate racial systems was introduced very soon after independence, and discrimination on the grounds of religion was brought to an end” (Nyerere, 1968, p. 270).