IIT To Develop New Curriculum

Stake holders on a group photo

The Institute for Information Technology (IIT) in collaboration with other IT stakeholders is reviewing its curriculum for IT degree program to make it more flexible and thus being in a position to cater for market demand. Moiz Salemwalla who is IIT Programme Director told this paper during the IIT NTA level 8 curriculum development stakeholders meeting held in Dar es Salaam yesterday that, the institute was developing its curriculum to enable students persuing degree program fit the dynamic IT job market.

 “We have specifically invited employers to this meeting so that they can say what they want from a person who is to be employed in their companies and organizations in IT department. All the stakeholders’ ideas will be taken on board in the process of developing the new curriculum,” He said, IIT has signed a two years agreement with PUM Netherlands in which experienced people from Netherlands will work in collaboration with IIT and other IT stakeholders in developing Competence Based Education and Training (CBET) program. Moiz mentioned the area of collaboration under the two years agreement is training of trainers, designing of human resource system for staff development as well as quality assurance designing for training.

Jeroen Hamerlinck from PUM Nethelands said, the IT sector is so dynamic such that it is not easy for a person to establish what the sector exactly needs. “We don’t know what the sector exactly needs because there is a lot of dynamism in IT. That is why we train people in different IT fields like in banking, telecom and others and give them the updates. The stakeholders meeting like this of today give an ideal ground where employers meets the experts and tell them what they need from a person who is to work with them,” he said.

On his part Anthony Karokola from University of Dar es Salaam Computing Centre noted that with industrial fit curriculum IT training institutions will be in a position to produce competent staff with relevant skills needed by the market and will also be in a position efficiently and increase productivity to their originations and companies. The one day meeting brought together employers and stakeholders from NACTE, IIT, TTCL,TIB,NBC, UCC, TRA, CBE, TPDF, BMTL, the Embassy of Netherlands. lIT appreciates the attendance of all invitees to this meeting and hope to implement the curriculum for the benefits of all Tanzanian students.