Press
Release
Dar es Salaam, 5th November 2013 – The Ministry of
Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT), the Vocational Education Training
Authority (VETA), BG Tanzania and VSO jointly organized yesterday a workshop on the vocational skills gaps
for the growing Tanzanian oil and gas sector. The aim of the workshop was to share, discuss and
validate the conclusions of an in-depth assessment study of the vocational
training gaps that has been conducted by BG in collaboration with VETA, Stow
College and VSO in the last 3 months.
Tanzania is
currently facing a significant gap between the skills the economy needs and the
skills the education system delivers. In order to meet Government aspirations
for Tanzania to become a Middle Income Country by 2025, as set out in its
Vision 2025, there needs to be an overall increase of 20% of medium skilled
labour, especially in certified trades and crafts. This is particularly evident in gas sector
related skills, where without further training very few are
likely to be able to access employment opportunities beyond the lowest level of
skills.
The workshop
was chaired by the Director of Technical and Vocational Training of the MoEVT, Mr. Thomas Dickson Katebalirwe, and
involved more than 60 representatives from Government, private sector, donor
partners and civil society.
The workshop
concluded the following:
-
The largest numbers of direct
and indirect employment opportunities in relation to the emerging gas sector will
be generated during the construction of infrastructure, including a potential
LNG development estimated to commence 2016/17. Most of these opportunities will
be of a vocational nature.
-
There are a number of
transferable vocational trades (eg pipe welding, carpentry, electrician) which
have been identified as being relevant to the emerging gas sector which would provide the country with a sustainable
asset that could benefit the country’s development more generally.
-
There are already a number of VETA
institutes providing training in these transferable vocational trades to around
17,000 students. In the short term, the priority focus should therefore be on
improving the quality of these programmes to ensure that these and subsequently
enrolled students become employable graduates. Ensuring these programmes meet international
industry standards is critical.
-
There is a clear role for
industry to support these efforts, but achieving these ambitious objectives
will require a wider collaboration between government, industry, NGOs,
practitioners and development partners.
-
There are already several Tanzanian
successes being delivered with existing resources, including among others,
VETA’s existing partnership programme with BG Tanzania and VSO in Mtwara and
Lindi. These are delivering impressive results in terms of improvements in both
quality and capacity. There is a need for a coordination mechanism to be set up
to enhance dialogue with key actors and consolidate and scale up these
Tanzanian successes.
The Director of
Technical and Vocational Training of the MoEVT welcomed the coordination
efforts and said that “the MoEVT was committed to further invest in
technical and vocational education training and coordinate efforts of various stakeholders in the
field”.
VETA director of training Leah
Lukindo emphasized on the “willingness of
VETA to reinforce its links with the industry to make the VETA curriculum more
relevant to their needs”.
VSO country director Jean Van Wetter “welcomed the willingness from stakeholders to coordinate their efforts
and highlighted that the current workshop was just the beginning of more
collaboration in the sector”.
Another workshop will be organized in the coming weeks to set-up agreed
coordination mechanisms and start to scale up successful initiatives.
For more information, please contact: 1. BG Tanzania: Kate Sullam, Social Performance Manager at PCATanzania@bg-group.com
2. VETA: Leah Lukindo, Director of Training, at leahdotto@yahoo.com
3. VSO: Jean Van Wetter, Country Director, at jean.vanwetter@vsoint.org
