US varsity keen to support Arusha College

What you need to know:

  • This would ensure students graduating at the government-owned institution are skilled enough to undertake jobs in the labour market.

Arusha. Clemson University in the United States will increase its support  to the Arusha Technical College (ATC) in biomedical engineering training, technology development and innovations.

This would ensure students graduating at the government-owned institution are skilled enough to undertake jobs in the labour market.

"We are here to expose students to design and system engineering. And for biomedical engineering we want them to be leaders in health care system", said  Dr. Hobey Tam from the South Carolina-based higher learning institution.

He spoke here on Friday during the demostrations by the college students on various technology applications aimed to upgrade their skills.

ATC, an autonomous institution under the Education ministry, introduced biomedical engineering programme some seven years ago due to the big demand of biomedical technicians in the country's health and allied facilities.

Introduction of the course was realized through a technical support from Clemson Univerisity and Beta International, a biomedical technology organization also from the US.

Already three batches of students numbering over 50 have graduated. Most of them  have been absorbed to take of healthcare infrastructure in hospitals and allied institutions.

Ms Donatha Mwase, an assistant lecturer in charge of entrepreneurship programmes at the college, said biomedical engineering and technological innovation courses were among the most successful at ATC.

However, she said the college needed support from the private sector to enable the students to undertake their projects successfully in the market.

"The government cannot fund making of the prototypes.Successful ones are taken to our entrepreneurship centre for incubation", she said.

The Rotary Club President in Arusha Ms Lucy Vrontamitis said they were impressed by innovative skills shown by the young professionals and that the club was ready was ready to support the programmes in question.

ATC Rector Dr. Richard Masika said upgrading of the training courses at the college to full scale engineering from the technician training level was timesly becuase of the industrialization drive announced by the government recently.

"The environment is ripe for the streamlined courses at our college because of industrialization and the entrepreneurship drive. This is the opportunity to take us to the next level", he siad.