eSchools programme and ICT integration in Tanzania's secondary education policy
May 01 2010, Tanzania [TZ], Education
Education is ‘in demand’: an established and respected driver for long term development. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are a must, are becoming more and more integrated in society, and opening new opportunities for people on a daily basis. Applying ICTs to empower education, and learning about ICTs in schools, are considered to be a necessity to overcome the challenges facing the education sector.
At least two development partners, Sida and IICD, are active in supporting the development area which is popularly known in the development world as ICT4E (Information and Communication Technologies for Education).
The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) is supported and assisted by Sida to work on two country-wide interventions. Firstly, all teacher training colleges in Tanzania will be equipped with computers and internet connectivity, allowing new teachers to acquire computer skills and use these in their future work in the schools; secondly the ‘eSchools programme’ is under formulation, a programme aimed at equipping a number of Tanzanian secondary schools with ICT facilities to enable teachers to use and teach ICTs for a better and more efficient education system.
IICD supports a number of smaller scale ICT4E pilot projects, gaining experience on the day-to-day use of ICT within the education sector. The supported projects (a total of six), range from making teachers notes and syllabi available online (www.distancelearning-tz.org), to a website sharing as much accurate and reliable information as possible on education in Tanzania (www.tanedu.org) and in-service teacher training on ICTs (Teacher’s Professional Development). Experiences and lessons learned from these projects are integrated into the formulation of the more extensive eSchools programme.
Together with the Commission for Science and Technology and in close collaboration with MoEVT, Sida and a number of key stakeholders in the sector, IICD facilitated a process of participatory ‘policy advice’ formulation, formally known as an ICT4E policy trajectory. This advice, on how to use ICTs to reach Secondary Education Development Programme (SEDP) objectives, was finalised in April and officially handed over to the Ministry in May 2006.
All these efforts are meant to support the strengthening of education in Tanzania, assisting and advising where possible to ensure a better education and prosperity for all Tanzanians. Knowledge sharing and an inclusive open attitude are key to success. Through this article we hope to contribute to this attitude by giving the reader more insight into what is currently happening.
Please feel free to contact the writers for more information.
Nathan Ducastel (IICD) – nathan.ducastel@gmail.com
Nils Jensen (Sida) - nils.jensen@sida.se
Read more about the IICD supported initiatives in Tanzania.