Tanzania: Govt Borrows Sh270bn for Youth Vocational Training
Dar es Salaam — The government has borrowed $120 mil(Sh270 billion) from the World Bank to hone the skills of Tanzania's youth in various vocational undertakings.
The deputy
permanent secretary in the ministry of Education, Science, Technology
and Vocational Training, Prof James Mdoe, said honing youth's skills is
important for Tanzania to achieve its goal of becoming a
semi-industrialized, middle-income nation as outlined in the country's
National Development Vision 2025.
Speaking on the
sidelines of a forum to discuss youth capacity building in Dar es
Salaam, Prof Mdoe said once the money is injected into the programme for
training youth as envisaged, there will be no need for investors to
acquire workers from abroad.
Sponsored by the
Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF), the forum brought together
several stakeholders from the private and public sectors of the economy
who - among other things - discussed the need to form sectoral councils
to advise the government on the components that need to be featured in
the training courses as planned.
"The monies we
borrowed from the World Bank will be acquired in the same style as that
of higher education. The beneficiaries will be youth in colleges at the
lower levels, as well as those who have been trained in short courses,"
Prof Mdoe stated. The money will be disbursed as part of the
implementation of a five-year programme titled 'Education and skills for
productive jobs,' implementation of which started last year.
He said the
government will thoroughly analyse investors' labour requirements before
deciding on which areas should be given priority in the disbursement of
the funds.
Acting through
sectoral councils, the government ensures that some graduate youth are
exposed to special training courses that meet the needs of investors, Mr
Mdoe said.
As it is, the
project is being implemented by the ministry in collaboration with the
National Council for Technical Education (Nacte), the Vocational
Education and Training Authority (Veta), the Higher Education Students'
Loans Board (HESLB) and the Tanzania Commission for Universities (TCU).
The TPSF executive
director, Mr Godfrey Simbeye, said the move by the government to invest
in producing appropriately skilled youth in the industry sector is
highly commendable - adding that the private sector invariably gives
priority to youth training.
"To us (private
sector), this is a commendable change from the usual borrowing for
infrastructure development to capacity building through trainings to
meet investors' needs. We had missed this component for long and, thus,
our people had failed to secure jobs," he said. According to Mr Simbeye,
the private sector has been entrusted with the task of presiding over
the National Skills Council, forming sectoral skills councils starting
with six sectors of the economy. These are agriculture, tourism,
transportation, energy, construction and ICT.
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