Tanzania’s Brief Report for SADC Regional OERs Policy Forum May 22-24, 2013 – South Africa.

CURRENT EDUCATIONAL PRIORITIES IN TANZANIA : Providing education for all; including individuals with special needs, rural based populations, etc. Expanding tertiary and higher education, while as well enhancing research and publications; Reducing illiteracy rates, through enhancement of adult education and open and distance learning; to include out of school youths; Linking education and training to the development of the national economy; Developing self-employment spirit among citizens through relevant competence based curricular; Developing and improving educational resources; Broadening financial base, cost effectiveness of education, and devolution of authority to schools, communities and Local Governments.

CURRENT EDUCATIONAL PRIORITIES IN TANZANIA Conts’ Promoting use of ICT across all education levels to ensure effective communication and ensuring data processing- storage, retrieval, and sharing; Ensuring staff competences through regular and effective training, motivation and equitable deployment; Ensuring quality education and training by instituting QA agencies.

C URRENT POLICY STATUS AND LINKS TO OER S While there is not yet a clearly defined national policy on OERs, existing policies and plans point to the essence and acceptance of OERs as reflected on the following policy related items: Adherence to internationally agreed policy targets such as the 1990 Jomtien World Conference on Education for All (EFA) and its follow up review at the 2000 Dakar Framework for Action; Universal Primary Education (UPE) focus remaining key in informing the country’s Education Sector Development Programmes in primary and secondary education;

CURRENT POLICY STATUS AND LINKS TO OER CONTS’ Considerations and acceptance of OERs as having capacity for an extensive reach to all who have access to OERs. This ties with the national Educational Policy and ICT Policy; Focus on competence based curricula with the aim of equipping learners at all levels to develop capacity of learning to learn, and positive perception of learning as a lifelong learning endeavour. It is realized that OERs provide opportunities where these aims can be attained; Continued emphasis on expanding student enrolment, improvement of quality education and capacity building in the education sector.

P OSSIBLE REASONS FOR INTEREST IN OER S Scarcity of internally developed educational and training resources - this scarcity can be addressed through OERs; Existing scarce educational and training resources cannot be accessed easily by clients due the rural character of clienteles’ locations – considerations of difficulty terrain and snail mail. Internet and mobile based OERs can serve individuals anywhere where there is internet connectivity and broad bandwidth ; The need to collaborate, share and partner with people and institutions locally as well as outside the country in the area of educational and training resources ;

POSSIBLE REASONS FOR INTEREST IN OER CONTS ’ The need to eliminate, as much as possible, “re- inventing the wheel” where such ‘wheels’ already exist, e.g., research, publications and educational media technologies; Adjusting and reacting to contemporary development and innovations as reflected through OERs; Except for attempts to localize (contextualization) OERs to our local situations OERs can be adapted to simplify teaching, training and learning activities- pedagogy, content and management.