Integrating Development issues and Innovation elements in Higher Learning Institutions’ Curricula a case of a Planning Institute in Tanzania

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DOI: 10.21522/TIJMG.2015.02.02.Art002

Authors : Judith Namabira

Abstract:

Successful industrialization helps create employment as it releases labour from agriculture directly and by stimulating the development of modern services. Industrial development has recently taken centre stage in the policy debate in the United Republic of Tanzania. The adoption of the Long Term Perspective Plan (2011/12-2025/26), which advocates for industry to propel the socio-economic transformation envisioned in the TDV 2025, and the Integrated Industrial Development Strategy (2011-2025). The Vision 2025 formulated in 1999 aims at propelling Tanzania from low-income economy to a middle- income economy with a high level of human development, whose economy is diversified and semi-industrialized. The idea is that manufacturing needs to contribute 40% of the GDP and generate 40% of all new jobs by 2020. As a way to reach this, the current President in Tanzania, when addressing the new Parliament at the end of 2015, talked of industrialization as key priority of the government during his term of office. For any industrialization to take place innovation is vital. In order to have good innovators, though, stimulation in innovation through the education system is needed. However, the level at which this is articulated in the different curricula is not clear. This paper analyses the extent to which the curriculum for higher learning institutions integrates contemporary development issues and innovation elements. The paper takes as case one of a Development Finance and Investment Planning Programme in the Planning Institute in Tanzania. The Department deals with, among other issues, investment planning. The Department is selected because industrialization is a matter of investment. The curriculum review through content analysis has shown that there is little considerations about development and innovation, facts that can jeopardize industrialization. The paper recommends that the curriculum is revised introducing contemporary development issues and innovation elements.

Keywords: Development, Industrialization, Innovation

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