How TANEDU drives Tanzania towards knowledge society

IT has been envisioned that education and knowledge helps the poor to improve their current livelihoods, address impediments and vulnerabilities that prevents them from seeking opportunities to improve their lives, and participate in new sectors of the national economy that require advanced skills and therefore offer incomes. But the many deprivations that compound the misery of the poor and prevent them to rise out of poverty, is their lack of access to adequate education, training, acquiring skills and development and broader information and knowledge resources that could help them improve their livelihoods. Tanzania as a nation, struggles very hard in order to overcome such problems that exists in the country especially in rural communities. It’s therefore mostly important to give priority to education and human resource development and ICT are by far the most efficient tools for education today. These are borderless technologies that have interacted with mankind development and expand horizons by shrinking the world. They are more useful as they can transform future generation to be part of the knowledge society which is a challenge for the new millennium.

Acquiring ICT skills and development for broader information and knowledge resources that could help people improve their livelihoods.

The Tanzania Education and Information Services Trust (TanEdu), is a Non- governmental Organization formed in January 2003 with a view to avail the potential of ICT so as to enhance the quality of education by giving the professional help to teachers, students and education administrators at all levels in the country. The organization which is located along Uporoto street, Kinondoni district in Dar es Salaam region, has set up an example that drives Tanzania towards knowledge society by having an ICT training center for secondary school students and their school heads, individuals, and government staff from the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MOEvT). The center in this case also gives sensitization programs through seminars on the use of ICTs for administration, classroom teaching and long life learning with the objective of creating awareness and make the beneficiaries become computer literate in this knowledge society. This is in line with the organization’s mission that aims at providing accuracy, reliable and much needed educational information and services to the beneficiaries by the most up to date means possible, on a regular basis and at affordable costs. To facilitate its vision, the organization has managed to create a knowledge society by providing educational information and services by the most efficient, effective and sustainable means by giving training and runs an education website namely, www.tanedu.org Since 2003, the organization has been rapidly developing its resources and staff and is devoted to the improvement of ICT training in the country through implementation in the education sector and have most of its activities done under the support of a Netherlands based International Institute for Communication Development (IICD).

Computer training in a classroom, is a good resource to increase ICT knowledge.

According to the Organization’s Managing Director, Daniel Long’lway, his organization has trained more than 600 people including secondary school students and their school heads on the use of ICT for development and become competent with the use of ICTs so as to reduce the digital divide that exists among them today. So far the center has trained 39 heads of schools from Dar es Salaam based secondary schools, and has put ICT awareness raising to 116 heads of secondary schools in Tanga, Dodoma, Arusha and Iringa regions and about 200 heads of schools from in eastern zone. The center has also given computer training and other skills to 161 best form four and six students in Dar es Salaam and have a weekly schedule of a knowledge society with an estimate of 30 students attending to the center per week. Of recent, the center has trained 35 officials from the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training. The center which is equipped with approximately 30 internet connected computers in its lab, has significantly played a key role in ICT industry by using international computer driving license standards. According to Mr. Daniel, the organization has provided basic ICT familiarization workshops both in its offices and in other sites in the country. For sure information literacy is a challenging for everyone. This need not be underestimated because in an information society, wealth comes from knowledge which is created through accessing, assimilating, sharing and using information. TANEDU recognizes the critical importance of effectively utilizing new ICTs to meet the growing need of managing information systems and contribute to poverty reduction in the country. In conjunction with its partners, the organization has actively supported many research through the information for development program and it has offered cost-effective opportunities to bring together policy makers and development practitioners across the country. To facilitate e-learning activities in the country, government and private sectors have formed various online projects with a view to help cater for the needs of the poor and the vulnerable groups in the country. TanEdu with the support of a Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) has provided a special training program known as Ambassador’s Program to a group of 40 outstanding students who excelled well in the National Certificate of Secondary Education Examination (CSEE) 2006. The organization has been giving such training for the past three years with remarkable success and at the end of training for this batch, TanEdu reached a total number of 168 students who have gone through the program. According to Long’lway, the aim of this program is to equip outstanding CSEE achievers with the knowledge and skills that will enable them to succeed more in school and be student ambassadors by sharing what they learn with other students. The objectives of this student Ambassador program were among others to link students to some of the best colleges and schools in and outside of Tanzania so as to share their knowledge and experiences with them. Concerning scholarships, there are a number of students who got offered with scholarship opportunities in some of the best schools in the country and abroad. The total worth of all the scholarships offered during their yearly program has a net worth of over US$ 445,000 (about Tshs. 500 million)