Presiding over the first event in the commercial capital, the Minister for Education, Science and Technology Prof Joyce Ndalichako said the input gathered from stakeholders will be used to write new preschool, primary and lower secondary education curriculum.
“We want the new curriculum to address issues raised in the current one including competence of school products as well as job creation after school,” she said.
The minister stated that the forums are being held in implementing President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s recent directive to review the curriculum so that it focuses more on problem solving skills as opposed to exam-tied schooling.
The Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE) will take note of suggestions from participating stakeholders and in other forums for use in final product for rolling out new curriculum for kindergarten up to form four, she said.
“We need to ensure that our curriculum provides skills and knowledge that will lay a solid foundation for quality education,” she emphasised.
A good curriculum at lower levels of education is vital as it helps to build a strong foundation for higher education. Well prepared pupils grow to university, with strong skills needed for development, she further observed.
“The suggestions that you're giving today should equip pupils with knowledge and skills that can better their personal lives and the country at large,” she said.
The exercise is important and thus participants should be keen and thorough.Opinions given will be used to prepare not just a curriculum but the future of Tanzania, the minister intoned.
Education stakeholder Richard Mabala, a native of Great Britain who taught as Mzumbe Secondary School in the 1970s and helped to nurture young writers, said that the government has made the right move to initiate the process of improving the curriculum.
What is needed is to map out guidelines for providing learners with practical knowledge, he stated.
He reiterated his longstanding opinion that for Tanzanian education to produce competent outputs, “Kiswahili should be made the only language of instruction in schools so that learners fully grasp what is taught instead of memorizing concepts presented in English.”
Rose Funja, an expert from Tanzania Bora Initiative said that this is the right time for curricula to be reviewed because the new ones will give learners a chance to do practical studies at lower levels of education. This will make the learning process easier at higher level, she added.
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