TANZANIA COMMISSION FOR UNIVERSITIES (TCU)

[Pages:37]TANZANIA COMMISSION FOR UNIVERSITIES (TCU)

REVISED EDITION

DECEMBER 2019

The Tanzania Commission for Universities, 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording,

scanning or otherwise, without permission in writing from the Tanzania

Commission for Universities.

ISBN: 978 - 9976 - 9353 - 1 - 4

CONTENTS

PREFACE ..................................................................................................................... iii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ......................................................................................... vi

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1 CONTEXT ............................................................................................................................ 1 RATIONALE .......................................................................................................................2 PURPOSE ............................................................................................................................4 SCOPE ..................................................................................................................................4

THE PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES ................................................................. 7 PRINCIPLE 1 .....................................................................................................................8 SUBMISSION OF A FOREIGN AWARD TO THE COMMISSION FOR EVALUATION ....................................................................................................................8 GUIDELINES ......................................................................................................................8 PRINCIPLE 2 .....................................................................................................................9 EVALUATION PROCESS OF FOREIGN AWARDS .................................................9 GUIDELINES ......................................................................................................................9 PRINCIPLE 3 ...................................................................................................................11 STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAMME LEADING TO A FOREIGN AWARD .........................................................................................................11 GUIDELINE ......................................................................................................................11 PRINCIPLE 4 ...................................................................................................................11 FOREIGN AWARDS OBTAINED THROUGH .........................................................11 SPECIAL PROGRAMME DELIVERY SYSTEMS ....................................................11 GUIDELINES ....................................................................................................................11 PRINCIPLE 5 ...................................................................................................................14 AWARDS IN PROGRAMMES LEADING TO ..........................................................14 PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE .......................................................................................14 GUIDELINES ....................................................................................................................14

i

PRINCIPLE 6 ...................................................................................................................15 DECISIONS ON VERIFICATION OF FOREIGN AWARDS .................................15 AND RECOGNITION OF QUALIFICATIONS..........................................................15 GUIDELINES ....................................................................................................................15 PRINCIPLE 7 ...................................................................................................................16 APPEALS AGAINST DECISIONS ON........................................................................16 RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN AWARDS .................................................................16 GUIDELINES ....................................................................................................................16 APPENDIX 1: ............................................................................................................ 17 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS................................................. 17 APPENDIX 2: ............................................................................................................ 18 GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................. 18

ii

PREFACE

Structural reforms being undertaken in Tanzania starting in the 1990s have enabled the private sector in the country to play a major role in socioeconomic activities, including the provision of higher education. Thus, as a result of the reforms, in 1996 private university institutions started to emerge in the country. This brought in exponential expansion of admission in higher education institutions, correspondingly leading to a more than 15-fold rise in the national higher education gross enrolment rate, from 0.27 per cent in 1997 to more than 4 per cent in 2016.1 Despite this expansion in student enrolment, Tanzania still lags behind in access to higher education, with enrolment levels being much lower than the SubSahara African average of about 8 per cent2. This indicates that Tanzania has a long way to go to catch up with the optimum university enrolment rate for the country to attain and maintain a knowledge economy status by 2025, in accordance with national aspirations spelt out in the Tanzania Development Vision 2025.3

Linked to Tanzania's structural reforms are the 21st century global socio-economic dynamics that, among others, have led to the expansion in cross border education provision. Thus, according to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) data, in the years 2012 to 2017 there were about 36,731 Tanzanian students studying abroad, distributed as follows: 2012 (5,359), 2013 (5,520), 2014 (6,075), 2015 (6,453), 2016 (6,585), and 2017 (6,579)4. These figures clearly indicate the importance of cross border education in enhancing access to educational opportunities to Tanzanian students. They also portray a corresponding contribution of this arrangement towards achieving the country's human resource needs as spelt out in the Tanzania Development Vision 2025 and the National Five-Year Development Plan 2016/2017 ? 2020/2021.5

1 TCU website: tcu.go.tz 2UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS). 2016; 3 United Republic of Tanzania. 1999. The Tanzania Development Vision 2025. Planning Commission, Dar es Salaam; 4 UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS). 2019. 5 United Republic of Tanzania. 2016. National Five Year Development Plan 2016/17 ? 2020/21. Ministry of Finance and Planning;

iii

One of the main factors limiting access to higher education in Tanzania relates to the inadequate enrolment capacity in the higher education institutions in the country. Furthermore, there are some specialised education and training disciplines that are not offered in higher education institutions in the country. These are some of the factors that prompt a number of Tanzanian students to look for higher education opportunities in overseas institutions. However, such arrangements pose the challenge of the awards and qualifications attained from the overseas education institutions not to adequately address national human resource needs. There are also issues related to the quality of the education provided by the overseas institutions, considering the great diversity of education systems in different countries in the world. Furthermore, there is also the need to establish an inventory of the students pursuing education in overseas institutions for the purpose of providing information to cater for national human resource planning needs.

In view of the aforesaid factors, the Commission in the fulfilment of its oversight responsibilities in the country's higher education sub-sector needs to institute appropriate mechanisms of evaluating foreign awards for the purpose of establishing their comparability with Tanzanian equivalences as the basis for recognition of the corresponding qualifications. This function falls under the Commission's mandate, as spelt out in section 5 of the Universities Act, Cap. 346.

It is against the aforesaid background that the Commission developed guidelines for evaluation of foreign awards in Tanzania. These guidelines were first developed in November 2016. However, after noting some inadequacies in guiding the evaluation process, the Commission carried out a review of the guidelines in order to make them more appropriate for the effective evaluation of foreign awards to establish their comparability with Tanzanian equivalences as the basis for recognition of the corresponding qualifications. Therefore, these Principles and Guidelines are the result of that review.

iv

The reviewed guidelines, which are now referred to as Principles and Guidelines for Evaluation of Foreign Awards and Recognition of Qualifications, were developed by two experts: Prof Mayunga Nkunya, former Executive Secretary of the Commission and the Inter-University Council for East Africa ? IUCEA respectively, and Prof Masoud Muruke, former President of the East African Higher Education Quality Assurance Network ? EAQAN and former Director of the Quality Assurance Bureau of the University of Dar es Salaam. Four staff from the Commission, namely Dr Telemu Kassile (Director of Accreditation), Ms Roserine Rutta (Legal Officer), and Mr Omari Shegilla and Ms Dativa Tesha (Accreditation Officers) provided operational inputs to the experts during the review. I express my sincere appreciations to the two experts and staff from the Commission for undertaking the review and subsequent development of these Principles and Guidelines.

The Commission expects that these Principles and Guidelines will be helpful in making informed decisions and speeding up the process of evaluation of foreign awards for the purpose of establishing their comparability with Tanzanian equivalences as the basis for recognition of the corresponding qualifications. The Commission is committed to undertake the evaluation of awards and subsequent recognition of qualifications with the highest level of objectivity, fairness, coherence, and transparency.

Prof Charles Kihampa EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

v

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download