Tanzanian Taskforce for Technical Tertiary Education

NACTE, the National Council for Technical Education, is the national body responsible for the accreditation and validation of all curricula in tertiary technical education in Tanzania.  Recent audits of the institutions falling within its remit revealed that many of Tanzania’s technical institutions are in vital need of modernisation to enable them to deliver high quality national qualifications and develop the many entrepreneurs Tanzania needs for its future development.  

Leeds Metropolitan University has twenty years of experience in Tanzania in the technical tertiary sector, much of this time working with Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology and for the last ten years have advised and supported NACTE.  Now under EAP the partners are working to establish a Tanzanian Taskforce to develop the quality, standards and capacity of Tanzania’s technical tertiary institutions for a model which may have wider application in countries where there is no quality agency present.  

The Taskforce comprises 18 members, each selected from 14 technical tertiary institutions for their first-hand experience of the fundamental problems.  Having come from similar backgrounds with knowledge of the context and areas for improvement the TTF members have formed a formidable network through which they are able to develop a common approach for quality assurance.  

Three extensive EAP project workshops have now equipped the TTF with the skills and the know-how which will allow them to go into Tanzania's technical tertiary institutions and help them to meet the ten NACTE accreditation standards and improve course provision across the board.  In order to sustain this selected taskforce members are now working to develop an NACTE-approved suite of courses and materials with the aim of cascading the approach throughout some 164 technical tertiary institutions in Tanzania after the EAP project has ended.