Abstract:

In order to respect the MDGs, Tanzania has made a number of progresses towards the achievement of Universal Primary Education (UPE), indeed a rapid increase in primary school enrolment has been experiencing since the launching of the Primary Education Development Plan (PEDP) in 2001.
Despite this comfortable data, it is well known today that to reduce poverty and inequality a by long-term sustained socioeconomic growth is required which can not be achieved without a good number of highly qualified and capable S&T graduates and engineers. Therefore one of the leverages to be pulled for promoting local development is the enhancement of higher education and HEI’s capacity in delivering appropriate, market driven and high quality programs.
The main problems to be addressed may be summarised as follows
- An unmet demand for engineering training opportunities especially in the areas of construction, material technology, metal manufacturing, Irrigation & water management systems, electrical engineering and ICT fields than in any other field is evident.
- Curricula design in engineering subjects are not addressing the emerging and changing needs of the private sector and the challenges of globalisation.
- Under-funding for curricula development is experienced.
The causes may be related to many aspects. At present we would underline the followings:
- There is a lack of regular surveys of occupational or technological trends is ;
- The students are not actively engaged in laboratory experimentation, demonstrations or exercises and practical training in industries during their training period.
- There is lack of journals, reference books and state-of-art facilities,
The project presented is inserted in a program of cooperation between UN agencies and Tanzania Governmental Institution and aims at enhancing the technological innovation capacity in higher education institutions within the country. One of the specific goals, addressed in this project, is the evaluation of science curricula for innovation in the higher education Institutions. the final beneficiaries of the project are the students and the local university faculty which will benefit form the curricula evaluation jointly defined within an international framework
The College of Engineering and Technology (CoET) recognizes fully the challenges of the 21st Century as stipulated in the Tanzania Development Vision 2025 which was adopted in year 2000 and its vision aspires in transforming the low productivity agricultural economy to a semi-industrialized one led by modernized and highly productive agricultural activities which are effectively integrated and buttressed by supportive industrial and service activities in rural and urban areas.
The purpose of the evaluation is to assess strengths of the country’s curriculum, identify its weaknesses and investigate opportunities for curriculum improvement in the context of promotion of innovation that is conducive to a sustainable economic growth of Tanzania.
Evaluation will focus on the science curriculum of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) which is by far the largest university in the country in this area though efforts will be made to cover other universities and the outcome of the research will be a support to the CoET to promote Technology and Innovation as instruments at the service of the strategic development of the Country.

Keywords:

Science curricula evalulation, labour-driven curricula, innovation, North-South relationship, joint cooperation.