| Contact
Details
Postal Address: P.O. Box 70074
Dar es Salaam
Tanzania
Telephone: +255 51 150314/150346
Fax: +255 51 150346
E-mail: saeu@intafrica.com
Contact: Elizabeth Ligate (Director)
Introduction
The Southern African Extension Unit (SAEU) was set up as a result of a
decision taken by the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in New Delhi in 1983. The
Unit was set up in 1984, with the main purpose of providing education and training
opportunities to South African exiles in Southern Africa.
With the repatriation of exiles during South Africa’s political
transformation, it became important to review the future of the SAEU, a task which was
undertaken with assistance from a consultancy team from the International Extension
College (IEC) in 1992. This study recommended a dual long-term role for the Unit. First,
it would shift its focus to provide education opportunities for other refugees in
Tanzania. Second, it would start to provide Human Resource Development opportunities for
non-refugees in the country using distance education methods. These dual roles are
reflected in the SAEU’s current projects. Those with a distance education focus are
described in detail below.
Refugee Programme
In establishing a new direction for the SAEU, it was decided that there
was potential for sharing the resources and knowledge the Unit had developed with
different groups of refugees in Tanzania. In beginning this work, the SAEU was required
first to understand the different educational requirements of different target groups of
learners. The Unit thus established a relationship with the United Nations Higher
Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) to provide education to refugees from Burundi living in
camps in West Tanzania. A key educational requirement of these refugees was the need to
learn English to adapt to the move from a Francophone to an Anglophone country. Another
need was provision of schooling for these refugees to allow them to pursue further
educational opportunities in Tanzania.
In response to these needs, the SAEU establish a basic English course
to be offered to refugees. The course consists of eight modules, the first of which makes
no assumptions about the learners’ level of English proficiency and the last of which
takes learners to secondary school level English proficiency. The course itself is made up
of printed materials, audio cassettes, and provision of face-to-face support twice weekly
by part-time tutors. These tutors are drawn from local schools in the area, and their work
is coordinated by an SAEU field coordinator in the area. Assessment takes place both
through written assignments and through a timed examination at the end of the course.
There are also in-built self-assessment activities for learners in the course materials.
The course, which has been funded by the UNHCR, currently has
approximately 800 enrolled learners, while about 2000 others have already successfully
completed it. Although the National Examination Council does not yet formally accredit the
course, students who have completed the course successfully have a wide range of learning
pathways opened for them. These depend on prior learning experiences in Burundi, but range
from completing secondary schooling at Form Four level (O Level) to embarking on teacher
upgrading or even proceeding to University-level studies with the Open University of
Tanzania. The SAEU provides its own accreditation for the course, but is also reviewing
the course to enable students to complete the Form Four National English Examination on
completing the SAEU course.
Having developed this course, the SAEU also decided to make more
subjects available to students. In order to achieve this easily, it has bought resources
from the Institute of Adult Education (see separate report) and provides tutor support
alongside these materials. Currently, Mathematics, History, Geography and Kiswahili are
made available to students. Assessment of assignments is organized by the SAEU, and is
complemented by monthly tests. The costs of this work are also currently being covered by
the UNHCR.
Local Councillors’ Programme
A second component of the work of the SAEU since 1992 focuses on
non-refugee education. In its first project, the SAEU was requested by the Commonwealth
Local Government Forum and the Tanzanian Government to design a programme for local
councillors. A key objective of this intervention has been to facilitate Tanzania’s
recent transition to multiparty democracy by educating the country’s 3700 local
councillors about the implications for them of multiparty democracy, as well as providing
skills and knowledge in administration and financial areas.
The programme, which was designed and piloted in 1996, is made up of a
set of three books, plus a study guide. It is supported by radio programmes, which have
been broadcast nationally and distributed on audio cassette, as well as by face-to-face
tutorial sessions run in the country’s districts. Assessment takes place through
tutor-marked assignments. Although the programme was due to have been completed by 1998,
it is still running as only 60% of the councillors have currently completed the course.
Delays have been caused both by the work schedules of some local councillors and problems
in communication between the district, regional, and national levels. Notwithstanding
these delays, the reaction of councillors to the course has generally been very positive,
helping them to achieve greater accountability in their posts and enabling them to create
better relationships with their non-elected staff members.
Distance Education Training Programme
The third distance education element of the SAEU’s work has
involved the creation of a course on distance education itself, developed jointly with the
Open University of Tanzania. This course consists of four workbooks. It is due to be
launched in July, 1999. |
