Rahim Ahmed
Member
- Dec 19, 2013
- 58
- 71
The National Council for Technical Education (NACTE) has warned the public against seeking enrolment into some technical colleges without ascertaining their registration status.
According to the council, candidates joining such colleges could end wasting their time and money without any remedy from either the government or the institutions themselves.
The call was made yesterday in Dar es Salaam during an exclusive interview with the NACTE Director of Institutional Guidance and Support, Mr. Timothy Manyaga after the cancellation of registration of twelve (12) training institutions.
Manyaga argued that other training institutions were telling lies that they were registered with NACTE, which wasn't true; and so prospective candidates unwittingly end up enrolling themselves with these institution against established rules and the law, warning that they face punishment once identified.
Manyaga identified some of the training institutions whose registrations had been cancelled as Media and Research Centre; Vision Hotel and Tourism College; East African College of Hospitality and Tourism Management; The African Institute of Business Management; Aspiration Training Centre; Dar es Salaam School of Hair Design; Media values Training Institute; El-Centre and the Information technology Training Centre -- all based in Dares Salaam; while others were identified as Morogoro School of Medical Sciences (Nursing) and Morogoro School of Medical Sciences (Lab Assistants) located in Morogoro and the School of Public Health (Nursing) in Singida.
"Some of the training institutions moved to unknown premises, some have ceased to operate … due mainly to lack of rehabilitation of infrastructure, development of National Technical Awards (NTA) curricula, practical training facilities, learning resources and qualified teaching staff.
"One such institution had since been fully registered but has failed to apply for accreditation even though it had been fully registered since 2004," he noted.
However, he cited ten training institutions which shouldn't enroll students because they were under the initial (preparatory) stage of registration, namely, Majority Training Institute, Sinon College, Institute of Business Management, Tarime Business Training Institute, Ndatele School Medical Laboratory Sciences, Edger Maranta School of Nursing, Dar es Salaam College of Clinical Medicine, Dar es Salaam College of Health Sciences, Makambako Institute of Health Sciences and Favre language and Communication Institute.
The board is conducting such evaluations using 2001 NACTE regulations, under which it is carrying out physical inspection of the institutions to ensure that all items listed on the application forms were fully addressed – and are correct.
Among other things, the board has since inspected the buildings, equipment, furniture, tools and audio-visual aids, information resources, support services, qualifications of the teaching staff, curricula, level of funding as well as the examination procedures, Manyaga says.
He revealed that NACTE had since evaluated all training institutions across the country, during which it discovered that out of some 323 training institution only 215 were fully registered, while 98 were under provisional registration and ten were at the ‘preparatory' stage.
Meanwhile, Regulations and Standards Manager at the Media Council of Tanzania (MCT), Pili Mtambalike, says the Council is working with NACTE to introduce curricula to be used in media training institutions in order to provide students with the same quality of competence.
Mtambailke said implementation of the project was aimed at producing competent media personnel able to work in a competitive labour market, saying the curricula were based on what she described as Competence Knowledge and Training (CBET) compared to previous ones which were based on knowledge-based education and training (KBET).
On 20 September, this year the MCT in collaboration with NACTE evaluated all training institutions across the country and found only two of them were qualified to use the new NACTE curriculum, namely, the A3 Institute of Professional Studies based in Dar es Salaam and the Arusha Journalism Training College.
Five colleges were served with a notice to upgrade their training facilities, and were given till next December to put their houses in order.
These include the Dar es Salaam School of Journalism (DSJ), Time School of Journalism (TSJ), and Royal College of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam; and the Institute of Social and Media Studies in Arusha and Zanzibar Journalism and Mass Media College.
SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
***My take DSJ is a long serving institute which has been 'manufacturing' journalists in our country but according to NACTE they fall below the required minimal standards to operate professionally. No wonder we have in-comptetent journalists in our country
cc: Pasco wa JF