ICT-based in-service teacher education for secondary school teachers in Tanzania
Tanzania has embarked on enhancing the availability and quality of secondary education. Through an earlier Sida supported project, necessary data infrastructure has been installed at 32 government teacher’s training colleges with a purpose to quickly train a large number of teachers, mostly in-service and at distance through the utilization of ICT tools. The project aims at enhancing the performance of the secondary teachers by providing training on pedagogy and subject specialized education. Mid Sweden University (MiUn) that has a vast experience of distance education, flexible learning and teacher training has been selected as the counterpart to the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training. The Open University of Tanzania (OUT) and the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) will also contribute to the development of project.
The expected results from the project include:
- Models for communication and learning material developed and tested
- Test groups of teachers equipped with basic ICT skills and experience in using e- resources
- ICT facilities established in test schools
- Experiences and results of the pilot project monitored and evaluated
- A model for nationwide program will be developed and tested.
The overall purpose of this project is to enhance the performance of the secondary teachers by
providing training on pedagogy and subject specialized education. The teachers will be
trained through ICT-based short courses which will be custom tailored to the needs of
teachers in particular subject areas.
The specific project objectives include:
- Equip teachers with basic ICT skills to be able to benefit from the potential of ICT in
teaching and learning. - Develop models for communication and distribution of learning material for different
technical environments (broadband, VSAT, mobile phones, CD/DVD, memory cards
etc). - Support teachers to handle the challenges of using e-resources through knowledge
sharing, networking and collaboration for improving teaching. - Promote equitable access to educational resources through the strategic application of
ICT. - Exploit the interactive potential of ICT in the provision of modern education theory
and practice via distance education programmes. - Create strategic partnerships for a sustainable ICT programme through collaboration
with the public, private and community sectors. - Establish a school network system for the collaborative sharing of educational
resources and stakeholder participation. - Encourage head teachers, teachers and students to be involved in the development of
applications and to use ICT meaningfully to enhance the teaching-learning process. - Encourage and facilitate the use of the Internet as a research and communication tool
among students, parents, teachers, principals, other MoEVT officials and members of
the community.
