Ministry: Get set for knowledge-based education

THE Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said the revised education policies and curriculum intend to focus on knowledge-based education and not theoretical education to meet the market demands and technological changes.

Speaking in Dodoma over the weekend during the career fair session organised by the non-governmental organisation AIESEC Tanzania, the Director of Higher Education from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Dr Kennedy Hosea said that the ministry in collaboration with other stakeholders were already in the process of ensuring that they reach the goal of providing knowledge-based education.

“April, 2021, President Samia Suluhu Hassan instructed the ministry to revise education policy and curriculum to allow our education to be skilled based. We have already started the process in collaboration with other stakeholders who have given us their inputs and opinions on how to implement this,” he said.

He said that in implementing the president’s directives, the ministry has started a big project that requires higher education institutions to establish an advisory committee that will include professionals from various employment sectors, who will provide their opinion on what the curriculum should include.

Dr Hosea noted that the ministry intends to send more than 3,500 lecturers and many more students to various institutions, companies and offices for practice industrial attachment that will help them acquire knowledge and skills.

“This project will help the ministry to achieve its goal because various sectorial stakeholders will help to revise the curriculum to match the skills they need in the labour market, but also industrial attachment will help lecturers to be more professional and knowledgeable on what they will impart to students,” he said.

“In this industrial attachment programme, we intend to send lecturers for example to banks, ministries, companies and all other places that have employment potentials so that they can practice what they are supposed to teach,” he added.

In addition, Dr Hosea has noted that despite the existence of employment challenges, the number of Tanzanian youth joining University education is low compared to the average number required for Southern Sahara countries.

“In Tanzania, we have about 240,000 youth who are pursuing their degree equal to 6.1 per cent; this number is small compared to the average requirement for Southern Sahara African countries which is an average of 9 per cent. Our colleague Kenya stands at 11 per cent, so we still have a responsibility to increase the number of Tanzanians students joining University education,” he said.

He also asked AIESEC and all other youth development partners and stakeholders to think of providing soft skills and not only focus on career opportunities.

“May you also provide soft skills, teach them how to write job application letters, how to write Curriculum Vitae (CV), how to answer interview questions and even driving because there are jobs you can’t get until you possess driving skills,” he said.

On his part, the AIESEC Country Director Richard Balayazi said that the aim of having these sessions for higher learning students is to build their capacity and help them to identify various local and foreign employment opportunities, as well as connecting them with some companies that are part of the employers.

“Through our various health, water, education, entrepreneurial environment and career fair programmes, we help youth identify various job opportunities available in the formal and informal sectors, but we also connect them with various companies that are part of the employers,” he said.

The CRDB Acting Head of the Training and Staff Development Division, Edith Mwiyombela said that in order to ensure that they help youth to face the labour market by possessing knowledge and skills, CRDB intends to provide field attachment opportunities for more than 100 students from Dodoma University.