Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA)
SAIDE

Context:
While collecting information for this global distance education network, SAIDE held several interviews with organisations in Southern African countries. Impressions of each country were generated to give some introduction to distance education and technology use in the area. Each interview has also been written up separately as a case study.

Source:
SAIDE country visits conducted in 1999

Copyright:
Permission granted

Contact Details

Postal Address: P.O. Box 2849
Dar es Salaam
Tanzania
Telephone: +255 51 863407/9
Fax: +255 51 863408
E-mail: vet@africaonline.co.tz
Contact: Ms. B.N. Ndunguru (Director of Vocational Education and Training)

Description

The Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA) used to be a division of the Ministry of Labour in Tanzania before its establishment as an autonomous body controlled by a range of stakeholders (including government, employers, trade unions, and educational providers). It now provides a range of services supporting the provision of Vocational Education and Training in Tanzania.

VETA has been providing distance education programmes in Tanzania since about 1974. These have, however, not been in operation for the last two years, as the Authority is currently reworking its training system extensively. It expects to have programmes offered again in 2000. These programmes will include new approaches, including full modularization of training modules and units to allow greater flexibility to learners as well as judicious use of new technologies. Programmes will be offered in both face-to-face and distance education mode. Programmes, curriculum, and course materials are developed centrally by VETA, and then provided by different training providers (of which there are approximately 500 in Tanzania, mostly concentrated in Dar es Salaam and Kilimanjaro).

VETA’s traditional curriculum focus has been on areas such as mechanical skills, engineering, plumbing, carpentry, and tailoring, but it will be integrating a range of business-related and entrepreneurial skills into its new programme focus. It will also be adding new vocational areas such as tourism, secretarial skills, and food processing. Likewise, where the traditional aim for such programmes was to prepare people for employment, the programmes’ focus will be extended to include people who are already working (a focus which has influenced the decision to integrate greater flexibility into educational provision).

It is not yet possible to estimate how many learners are likely to enrol for VETA’s new-look programmes in 2000. On the one hand, distance education is still a relative novelty in these areas and established markets for such services do not yet exist; on the other, there is massive potential for attracting students, especially for those who are already working.