Education stakeholders evaluate reviewed curriculum

Dar es Salaam. A meeting of education stakeholders convened on Thursday, January 18 evaluated the reviewed curriculum, whose implementation starts this year, and recommended several issues that need to be addressed for the curriculum reforms to work.

One of the recommendations included providing detailed information on the changes to the students who are the main target but who, they believe, have been forgotten in the curriculum review process.

The executive director of Open Mind Tanzania, Mr Dominic Ndunguru, said a lot has been shared with other stakeholders, like parents and teachers, but there is very limited knowledge among students, who are the main target.

"We are deciding for students without listening to them and informing them on what it means to have the reforms of the curriculum. How will it be productive if they are left out? Let them be reached out to by their teachers and get clear information on the changes,” said Ndunguru.

The meeting was organised by the Tanzania Education Network (TenMet) in collaboration with the Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE).

Speaking at the meeting, the director of Transforming Life, Ms Nashivai Mollel, said Tanzania has always had good education policies and curricula, but the challenge has always been that of effective implementation.

She said that while the reviewed curriculum has brought new subjects, including Arabic and Chinese, she wondered if the government has enough skilled teachers to teach the subjects in the manner that they were supposed to be taught.

Responding to the queries raised during the meeting, the director of Curriculum Training at the TIE, Dr Shika Mwakabungu, said the government was aware of the lack of teachers, adding that the execution will go in phases, starting with schools with qualified educators.

"Currently, we have a total of 98 schools, both private and public, that have met requirements for the introduction of the new subjects in the new curriculum. Slowly, all schools will meet the requirements and adopt the subjects,” said Dr Mwakabungu.

Julius Muungano from PELO, questioned the government about how far they researched and learned from other countries globally on how to implement the borrowed aspects. Dr Godson Lema, the Director of Curriculum Design and Review at TIE, said that during the improvement of this curriculum, they learned a lot from different countries globally.

He said that in Singapore, graduates have a total of five channels to continue with soon after secondary education, while in Tanzania, we only have two channels, which are educational and vocational pathways. This is a challenge for Tanzania to learn more and see how a country can expand its channels in the future.

The TIE Director, Dr Aneth Komba, said more than 95 percent of teachers in the country have been trained on the new curriculum, which aims at making graduates more employable and self-reliant after they graduate.