Educational Website - Tanzania

In order to improve performance among the education sector policy makers, education institutions and administrations at all levels, in 2002 the Tanzania Education and Information Services Trust (TaNEdu)  set up the websitewww.tanedu.org. The website’s goal is to provide timely, accurate and reliable information about education services in Tanzania. The site could reach over a hundred thousand, teachers, principals and parents in Tanzania. TanEdu also produces and circulates a newsletter, organizes weekly knowledge society meetings for students (including counselling and career guidance), and provides educational services like ICT awareness raising and training courses for students, teachers, principals and administrators.

The most popular features of the website include examination results and the school database, including contact information of 1060 schools and 47 teacher colleges. The site is updated regularly and is improved in structure, graphics and content.

Since June 2004, a monthly newsletter is produced of which the off-line version is disseminated up-country amongst others via a co-operation with Peace Corps volunteers. The bulletin contains articles for students, teachers and parents information on education services throughout Tanzania.

In 2007, TanEdu trained high-level staff members of the Ministry of Education in the use of ICT for education. The organization participated in the development of the national ICT for Education policy. TanEdu also organised up-country seminars for heads of schools, to raise awareness on the importance of ICT for education.

Tanedu was halted in 2008 as the e-School programme of SIDA did not take off. One parastatal organisation is interested in taking over the web-site. However one of the students who co-developed the idea of Tanedu, has organised a group of alumni of Tanedu and is preparing a restart the organisation.

• To provide timely, accurate and reliable information about education services throughout Tanzania through a website (www.tanedu.org) and newsletter;

• To sensitise the education sector on ICT for education;
• To facilitate dialogue among stakeholders in the education sector;
• To build up a knowledge society in Tanzania by training and sensitizing beneficiaries on the use of ICT for education; and,
• To make ICT tools available to the beneficiaries at affordable costs.

Yhje project has an enormous amount of beneficiaries (estimated users who consult the website at least 4 times a year):

• Students: 100,000
• Teachers: 1,000
• Principals: 1,500
• Parents: 1,000
• Education administrators: 1,500
• Researchers: 100

Read more about IICD's approach towards Education.

TanEdu had to come up with ideas on how to sensitise other stakeholders on the value of ICT. For example, to enable TanEdu to publish relevant information, it sought for cooperation with the Ministry and a number of other stakeholders. In the beginning, that was difficult, as stakeholders did not understand the purpose of online information. TanEdu proved differently by scanning paper information and making it public as well as by linking to other initiatives. Over time, the Ministry started realizing the value.

All IICD-supported education projects experienced unexpected changes that interfered with their plans of action. For example, TanEdu realized that a website alone is not financially sustainable at this moment in the Tanzanian context. Also, it was difficult to find advertisers. Therefore, TanEdu diversified its activities in order to survive.

Project manager is the Tanzania Education and Information Services Trust (TanEdu). Apart from creating a website and a newsletter site and the newsletter, TanEdu organises networking events for the educational sector. For example, in collaboration with the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) and the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC), Tanedu organized Education Excellence Award ceremonies to honour the twenty best Secondary School students. Ten boys and ten 10 girls schools were awarded with a package of ICT training and free career guidance for three weeks. TanEdu also organized monthly meetings entitled "ICT towards a well-educated and learning society" which brought together a broad group of initiatives, organizations and projects in the educational sector. During the last two years, TanEdu has been organising 'Knowledge Society' meetings each Saturday,  where  students  learn about  ICT,  developing a CV,  how to apply for scholarships etc.