The children of senior-most government officials--permanent secretaries,
directors, commissioners and, yes, President Nyerere, went through
JKT--eating ugali with beans, doing strenuous exercises and sharing
trenches with offspring of the workers and peasants of this country.
In Summary
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s government stood its ground
and actually sent home undergraduates who had termed enlistment “worse
than colonialism.”
The establishment of the National Service (JKT)
in 1963 had, at first, been met by disaffection from some of those who
were compelled by enlist, including university graduates.
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s government stood its
ground and actually sent home undergraduates who had termed enlistment
“worse than colonialism.”
The JKT programme did, ultimately, earn the
appreciation of those who had the opportunity to go through the training
it offered, including basic military training, vocational skills and
political education geared at inculcating patriotism.
Who does not know that Tanzania’s victory over
dictator Idi Amin Dada’s invading army in 1978/79 was, to a large
extent, made possible by the ex-JKT youth--the thousands of young people
who were ready to die for their country?
At the JKT training schools and production camps,
university graduates, Form 4 and 6 leavers and primary schools were
teamed together. Your academic or social background was of no
consequence in the eyes of the no-nonsense “afandes.”
The children of senior-most government
officials--permanent secretaries, directors, commissioners and, yes,
President Nyerere, went through JKT--eating ugali with beans, doing
strenuous exercises and sharing trenches with offspring of the workers
and peasants of this country.
The suspension of statutory JKT in 1994,
ostensibly due to funding constraints, was unfortunate indeed and we
have every reason to celebrate its return in 2013.
While it is true that ex-JKT volunteers of
yesteryear had greater chances of joining the military and the public
service, it was not guaranteed. The key objective of the National
Service was to instil in youth a sense of nationhood and patriotism.
JKT is not about readying anyone for special
favours. That is why we consider the plan by some youth to even think of
staging a march to pressure the government into providing them with
jobs as an unfortunate misinterpretation of what JKT is all about.
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