The Department of Economics is part of the University of Dar es Salaam, the first public university in the country. The department is one of the 10 departments in the College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS). The mission of the department is to generate, impart and exchange knowledge in the discipline of Economics through teaching, research and provision of advisory services to the government, non-government sector and bilateral and multilateral organizations. Further, the department aims to initiate and actively take part in national and international socio-economic policy debates.
Striving for continuous improvements, the department aims to contribute to the vision of the University of Dar es Salaam which is, to make it “… a world-class University that is responsive to national, regional and global development needs through engagement in dynamic knowledge creation and application”.
The inter-related mission functions can be spelt out as:
- To generate and transmit academic and applied knowledge in the field of Economics at internationally accepted, competitive standards through quality teaching that imparts analytic competencies and critical thinking, responsible scholarship and pursuit of verifiable truth
- To evolve policy-relevant research programmes that address national development problems and priorities and which, at the same time, feed into the teaching of economics;
- To promote students’ creativity and drive for self-actualisation and thus prepare confident graduates capable of working with exemplary competence in the labour market and of being job-creators themselves, with due regard to professional and ethical integrity.
- Provide public advisory services to national and international institutions, private sector and civil society;
- To forge and strengthen external links of the department’s academic and research activities with those of other Universities, local and international development agencies and public policy institutions in matters relating to research, exchange of staff and students and academic and research material.
The department handles around 1,500 students in a year from itself and from other departments within and outside the CASS. It offers three main taught-programmes: (i) BA, (ii) MA and (iii) PhD in Economics. Both MA and PhD programmes are done by coursework and dissertation (CW&D) and admit a good number of students from the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
The department holds staff-student departmental seminars as well as Policy Seminar Series. The Policy Seminars host papers prepared by professionals in the research and policy institutions outside of the University of Dar es Salaam. The Policy Seminars invite non-economists who are interested in how economic policy affects other aspects of development. Members of staff and guest presenters may opt to have their work printed as Department of Economics Discussion Paper after undertaking some editorial and substantive revisions following the initial departmental seminar. In addition, the department expects to launch its journal, “Review of Economic Policy and Development (REPD)”. |
