by Andreas Dittmann

While in Tanzania an increasing number of church institutions are adversely affected by well-educated staff drifting off to public institutions due to better salaries in such sector, a reverse trend can be identified in the university sector. Regardless of any differences in salaries, an increasing number of professors move to church universities because of the better quality of the teaching and learning environment, and with this “vote with their feet” they give an excellent reference to the university institutions of church organizations. The Sebastian Kolowa University College (SEKUCo) of the Tumaini University of the Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) is one of them.

The Tumaini University is one of the largest and most significant church universities of Tanzania. It consists of several university colleges of different organizational structures, traditions and focuses on content, spread across different locations (see Fig. 1). The head office of the state-approved Tumaini University is located in Moshi in immediate vicinity of the campus of one of the oldest affiliated colleges, the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College (KCMC).

The different colleges of the Tumaini University are currently in different stages of development and extension. While the branches with a long tradition, like the KCMC and the Iringa College, have been established for a long time and have been committed to tasks of general health care in addition to university teaching, others like the newly founded Sebastian Kolowa University College (SEKUCo) are still in the phase of a dynamic development.

To promote this development through international research partnerships, the SEKUCo signed a cooperation agreement with the Institute of Geography at the University of Gießen in 2008, providing for the exchange of students and scientists as well as the development of joint research projects. Located amidst the Usambara mountains – a region with a spectacular biodiversity – the SEKUCo actually is an ideal partner for cooperations in the sectors of Nature Conservation, Natural Resources and Eco-Tourism.

Brain Drain, the movement of well-educated staff to other sectors, presently constitutes a considerable obstacle to development in many areas of church organizations in Tanzania. In many cases, people trained before in church education centres like technical colleges, vocational schools and hospitals, drift off to public or private institutions. This is particularly true with respect to higher administrative officers, administrators and accountants, but also to physicians and nursing staff trained in church hospitals.

Although this trend following a remuneration somewhat higher on an average in public institutions is understandable, such drain of human capital is likewise regrettable from the viewpoint of the church organizations funding and sponsoring the training, as they are not only regretfully watching the drain from church employment sectors, but meanwhile have begun to be directly affected by an acute shortage of staff in employment sectors requiring intensive training.

In many cases there is a noticeable shortage of administrative and nursing staff. The drain from church organizations was triggered by a well-meant initiative of important industrial countries which was actually intended as a development impetus. Within the scope of the so-called Millennium Development Goals they had decided to provide financial aids having a knock-on effect on particularly affected economies of some less developed countries by granting a debt relief. The additional funds from this initiative available in Tanzania were distributed by the government and used, among other things, for a general increase of the salaries at public institutes of education and hospitals which previously were far below the international average. Church organizations have been excluded from this measure so far, although by now there are numerous initiatives that strive for a reorientation. The idea of raising salaries in public employment sectors that was actually meant to be a blessing meanwhile has turned out to be a curse for church institutions. This is all the more regretted by the church organizations, since many well-trained people who now follow the general Brain Drain were actually trained by church organizations.

It is all the more remarkable that we can identify a contrary trend in the university sector. Here we see a type of reverse Brain Drain from public universities to universities sponsored by church organizations – and this in spite of a comparable structure of differences in salaries (see Fig. 2). The fact that notwithstanding higher average salaries paid by public universities a marked movement from public to church universities can be recorded, clearly argues for the generally high quality of church university institutions on a Tanzanian overall scale. It is mainly professors from senior positions and those who have been employed by public universities already for many years who now increasingly seek employments in church universities. The motives behind this trend – which is contrary to the general trend – are clearly based on a better teaching situation, a better basic and professional qualification of the students, a sounder teacher-student relation (currently 1:24!) and the curricula meeting international standards. In terms of teaching quality in Tanzania, the church universities are presently far ahead of the public universities. A more reliable evaluation of the quality of university institutions than an evaluation evidenced by the migration of academic staff is hardly imaginable.
This, particularly, also applies to the present situation of development and optimistic spirit prevailing at the SEKUCo University College of the Tumaini University in Magamba near Lushoto. It has not only been professors from other regions of Tanzania who have committed themselves to teaching there, but also professors from other African countries like Kenya and Nigeria. The Dean of the College, Dr. Anneth Munga, has not only pushed the infrastructural development and the extension of the curriculum of the SEKUCo College with some remarkable speed, but she has also realized an internationalized staffing policy by advertising chairs in magazines of Anglophone countries in sub-Sahara Africa; this policy is some that I also would like to see in some public universities – including universities in Germany.


Andreas Dittmann is a professor at the Institute of Geography of the Justus-Liebig University in Gießen (Germany).

The UEM has supported the SeKUCo from the outset. For further information contact Angelika Veddeler, Manager of the Programme for International Diaconia of the UEM. For further information on Sekuco, please visit www.sekuco.org

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