Utilising Secondary Schools Facilities for Adult Learning Programmes in Tanzania: A Veracity of Trances

Abstract

The majority of Tanzanians acquire primary education, which is actually not enough for manpower production purposes. With this kind of graduates, the country may not be in a position to develop fast unless adult education takes part fully to rescue the situation because primary education offers insufficient required life skills. Adult education has an essential contribution in building social capital, fostering social inclusion and combating both direct and less obvious costs of social exclusion. With increased number of secondary schools in each commune all over the country with at least one education degree holder teacher educator, we believe that secondary schools facilities could be used for implementing adult learning programs to boost social economic development. Interview was conducted to 10 teachers. The study employed interpretative-descriptive analysis to present the data. The paper addresses the extent to which secondary schools can be utilised as adult learning centres.  It was found that investing in available human resources via adult education-based courses and activities remains the main engine to provide the needful market oriented and the basic life skills to a growing unemployed community in Tanzania. We suggest that treating adult education seriously may resolve the problems of unskilled work force, unemployment rates to achieve rapid economic and social growth. With adult education, the government may be able to produce a skilled and informed adult population.

Keywords: Adult education, primary education, development, human resources investment and training