Haule, Michael J.
Description:
Tanzania has recently embarked on application of Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT) in teaching and learning especially in Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs).
Despite the observed countrywide ubiquitous use of internet, access to plenty of open
educational resources (OER), several challenges on OER use are yet to be identified and clearly
addressed. Necessary changes in the curriculum, teaching methods and institutional
management procedures are required. While OER are designed as “learner centred”, “teachercentred”
method is predominant in Tanzania. Incompatibility between OER and the educational
system may culminate into confusion among students, instructors and educators. The changing
role of lecturers, tasked in forging parity between the OER and the situations in HLIs forms
another challenge. The origin of OER used in Tanzanian HLIs probes on both their quality and
utility. All these issues need to be addressed. This paper explores the teaching/learning system
in the verge of vast utilization of the OER in Tanzania using meta-analysis that combines facts,
data and findings from previous studies. It identifies the nature and character of
teaching/learning process in Tanzanian HLIs, locates the OER use, uncovers challenges facing
effective accommodation of OER; and highlights ing policy implication to Tanzania. The
findings indicate high accessibility of OER to lecturers, students and educators in Tanzania, with
the evident lack of national policies and guidelines on OER use. The education system is not in
conformity with OER requirements in terms of both syllabi and pedagogy. Therefore major
adjustments are recommended on the transformation of the educational system for countrywide
sustainable OER utilization.