Education sector gets 300bn/- for transformation
IN empowering learners with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to be resilient, the government has disbursed 300bn/- for the transformation of education sector in the country.
Making the revelation, while winding up the Education Policy and Curriculum workshop in Dodoma on Sunday, the Deputy Minister in the President’s Office, Regional Administrations and Local Governments Authorities (PO-RALGA) Deo Ndejembi further said the fund will go, especially towards improving nine technical schools by improving their infrastructures.
Without naming the institutions, he added: “We will use these funds to improve the technical infrastructures in the nine technical schools and ensure that they are ready to bring about changes in the education they provide.”
Elaborating, he noted that the improvements will include building new technical schools in councils, which lack Vocational Education Training Colleges (VETA).
“In the first phase we will build technical colleges in 63 councils, which have none so that their residents also have the same practical education,” he pointed out.
In the arrangement, students in the institutions will be taught technical education and provided with same certificates as those in technical colleges.
On his part, the Minister for Education, Science and Technology Professor Adolf Mkenda said the meeting was of great success to them, noting that they will implement resolutions considered in order to move forward.
He said that the ministry has decided to focus more on making practical education more attractive and productive for the nation’s development.
“We have started to focus on the nine existing technical schools, but we are looking forward to establishing also secondary schools for sports and to begin with, we will start with a few schools as a pilot feasibility and continue to expand once we see success” he said.
In a related development, Prof Mkenda said that the government has already allocated a budget to prepare teachers, who will impart skills in the schools, and soon will provide them with short courses.
He said that the government will first assess how to implement the issue of early education and make it mandatory, adding that the approach will use the health and agriculture colleges to provide training for ordinary level secondary school students.
“The goal of education is not only to learn practical knowledge, it also aims at enhancing courage towards thinking and questioning (critical thinking), that’s why we will see how to consider early childhood education to be a basic education” he said.
The Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Culture and Sports, Professor Kitila Mkumbo said that through the conference, the Members of Parliament have been issued with tools to work to ensure that citizens wishes and opinions are being implemented.
“Our job is to support the government to implement these ideas and those in the draft so that we can see changes and transformations in our education,” he said.
“We have a President (Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan) with vision and the will to manage this matter, we believe that the next five to 10 years there will be major changes in Tanzania education sector and we will see its fruits,” he said.
He said that with both drafts and the comments made, the new policy that will be amended to enable the students to have both practical and knowledge-based education.
On her part the Minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development Dr Angelina Mabula said that the Ministry of Land is ready to facilitate the acquisition of areas for the construction of the technical schools to ensure that reforms in the education sector are successful.
The collection of opinions for the improvement of the Education and Training Policy of 2014, the 2023 edition, as well as the draft of the new curricula for primary, secondary and teaching colleges will continue to May 31, 2023.
