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| The Chancellor of the Aga Khan University (AKU), His Highness the Aga Khan, confers a master’s degree in education on Ms Mwanapili Mwinyi Kambi at the 2015 AKU convocation in Dar es Salaam yesterday. |
The investment, to be released over 15 years, will see new campuses and graduate schools in the region, with $700 million coming to Tanzania. Speaking at the university’s graduation ceremony in Dar es Salaam, the Aga Khan said both the developed and the developing worlds need quality civil society organisations to manage the future. Vibrant and ethical civil society organisations are critical if the quality of human life across the world is to be improved, he added.
“More and more, I am convinced that the key to improving the quality of human life--both in places that are gifted with good governments and in places that are not so fortunate--is the quality of what I describe as civil society,” said the Aga Khan.
He defined civil society as an array of institutions that are neither public nor profit-driven but motivated by voluntary commitment and dedicated to the public good.
They include institutions dedicated to culture, public information, the environment and religious faith. Just as important are health and education.
The Imam of the Ismaili community said a healthy civil society is a meritocratic one where ethics are honoured and excellence is valued, “and the great question confronting us here in Africa is how rapidly the institutions of a healthy civil society can be established and reinforced”.
As it advances and shares new knowledge, he added, AKU will play a central role in growing a quality civil society. On Monday, AKU became the first foreign university to be given a charter by the Tanzanian government. Tanzania is a special place for AKU since the Aga Khan’s grandfather, while serving as Imam of the Ismaili Muslim community, made education a top priority and started the first Aga Khan School in Africa over 110 years ago in Bagamoyo.
AKU has graduated 12,000 students in the past 15 years, including nearly 2,000 nurses and 3,000 teachers. In the past year, the university has trained 1,000 secondary school headteachers. A new campus, expected to be ready in four years, is being built in Arusha to house the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, two graduate schools, a technology and research park and a library.
AKU will this year open a Graduate School of Media and Communications in Nairobi, according to AKU President Firoz Rasul. Other graduate schools, specifically designed to advance a healthy civil society, are in the pipeline. They include schools of leadership and management, hospitality, leisure and tourism, architecture and human settlements, government, civil society and public policy, economic growth and development, law and education.
In Dar es Salaam, a new campus will house the Institute of Educational Development. “Each of our campuses will serve students from across East Africa and they will be crossroads--places that bring the region’s people together to learn from the best in the world and from each other,” said Mr Rasul. In contributing to East Africa’s development at a time of regional and global integration, AKU intends to expand beyond the current outlines in order to develop versatile, agile and innovative leaders of a wide variety.
President Kikwete granted AKU a charter on Monday, making it the first foreign-based institution to receive the honour.
The Head of State handed the certificate to His Highness at a ceremony at State House. Yesterday, the Aga Khan conferred degrees on the 2015 graduands.
AKU yesterday marked 15 years since its establishment in East Africa. The function begun with a colourful procession by a group of students who marched together, with pomp and style,with His Highness to Diamond Jubilee Hall.
The Citizen
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