5 colleges axed after falling short of required standards

National Council for Technical Educational (NACTE), chairman, Engineer Steven Mlote(Left) addresses  reporters  in Dar es Salaam yesterday .Others are  Nacte acting director, Dr Adolf Rutayuga and  control, monitoring and evaluation director , Agnes Ponera. PHOTO|VENANCE NESTORY

What you need to know:

  • The authority has also issued stern warning to college operators whose institutions lacked key requirements.
  • Briefing journalists yesterday in the City, Nacte chairman Steven Mlote said after assessing and monitoring colleges they found out that State College of Health and Allied Sciences, Zoom Polytechnic College, Tabitha College of Financial Training Centre na TMBI College of Business and Finance all based in Dar es Salaam did not meet the minimum standards to produce competent professionals.

Dar es Salaam. The National Council for Technical Education (Nacte) has deregistered five technical colleges for falling short of the required minimum standards.

The authority has also issued stern warning to college operators whose institutions lacked key requirements.

Briefing journalists yesterday in the City, Nacte chairman Steven Mlote said after assessing and monitoring colleges they found out that State College of Health and Allied Sciences, Zoom Polytechnic College, Tabitha College of Financial Training Centre na TMBI College of Business and Finance all based in Dar es Salaam did not meet the minimum standards to produce competent professionals.

“So, these five colleges have been banned indefinitely. Their managements can rectify the shortcomings identified and come back to us for a fresh assessment. We advise parents and guardians not to waste their money and time sending their children to colleges that are lacking,” Mr Mlote cautioned.

The Nacte boss further said there were 41 other colleges which were operating without proper registrations. Their owners have been given two weeks to seek formal registration or risk legal action including being taken to court.

“Certificates issued by these colleges will not be recognised anywhere, children would have wasted their time,” he said.

The list of unregistered colleges includes Macmillan Training College, St David College of Health, Islamic Culture School all based in Dar es Salaam; Dar es Salaam School of Journalism and Mass Communication (DMSJ) branches in Geita, Mwanza, Kagera and Simiyu regions.

There are 11 other colleges which are dully registered but offer courses which they have not been authorized to teach.

The colleges have been asked to immediately withdraw the courses. Some of the colleges in this category are Royal College of Tanzania (Dar es Salaam), which has been barred from offering law courses and Zanzibar Technology College which was offering Computer Science without approval.

According to him, there are also 112 colleges which have failed to update their registration status on time. Some of the colleges have secured registration but are yet to be affirmed while others haven’t began a re-affirmation process. Colleges in this category have a month to update their status.

Another list consists of 52 colleges whose affirmation has expired and they have not sought new certificates, these have been given a month to sort themselves out.

For his part, Nacte’s director for Registration, Mr Twilumba Mponzi, said the body was very serious in making sure that all technical colleges in the country adhered to standards so that the quality of professional education was not compromised in the country.