Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE) director general, Dr Aneth Komba (right), and Aspire Educational Technologies CEO from the United Arab Emirates, Dr Rahul D’Mello (left), sign a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at enhancing digital education in Tanzania. PHOTO | COURTESY
Dar es Salaam. In a renewed push to modernise learning and ensure no Tanzanian student is left behind, the government has turned to strategic digital innovations, collaborating with various stakeholders to ensure successful implementation.
A key milestone in this effort is a newly signed three-year agreement between the Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE) and Aspire Educational Technologies from the United Arab Emirates.
This collaboration seeks to deliver high-quality, curriculum-aligned digital content for secondary schools across the country — a major step forward in the nation’s digital education journey.
The agreement, signed in Dar es Salaam on June 9, 2025, aligns with Tanzania’s broader Digital Economy Framework 2021/22–2025/26, which prioritises the integration of digital infrastructure and services into all key sectors, including education.
“This partnership with Aspire Educational Technologies is a move to bring high-quality digital content to our secondary schools, ensuring our students gain the digital skills they need to thrive in the 21st century,” said director general of TIE, Dr Aneth Komba.
The initiative is timely. According to the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), internet penetration in Tanzania has risen to 55 percent by the end of 2023, with over 33 million internet users, largely driven by mobile broadband.
Additionally, mobile phone penetration stands at around 93 percent, offering a crucial platform for the delivery of digital learning materials. However, challenges remain.
Only about 37 percent of households in rural Tanzania have access to electricity, according to the Rural Energy Agency (REA), which means digital learning rollouts must take into account infrastructural disparities.
Historically, Tanzania’s education sector has been grappling with a long-standing digital divide that has left millions of learners — particularly those in rural and underserved communities — without equal access to quality education.
The challenges became starkly visible during the Covid-19 pandemic, when school closures exposed the country’s unpreparedness for remote learning.
In a renewed push, the ministry of Education, Science and Technology has, in recent years, intensified efforts to digitise the education sector through policy reforms.
The Education and Training Policy of 2014, updated in 2023, and the National Digital Education Strategy lay the groundwork for integrating ICT across all levels of learning.
These frameworks focus on updating curricula to incorporate digital competencies, ensuring reliable internet and ICT infrastructure in learning institutions, among other goals.
It also emphasises on creating inclusive platforms that reach underserved students, including those in remote and marginalised areas.
In line with these, TIE has already digitised several textbooks and teaching guides, but lacked a robust digital content ecosystem — a gap the Aspire partnership is expected to fill.
Aspire CEO Dr Rahul D’Mello emphasised the company’s mission to enhance educational outcomes through accessible and inclusive technologies.
“This collaboration will not only support digital education growth in Tanzania but will also improve the quality of secondary education through technology-driven solutions,” he said.
He added that TIE will play a significant role in overseeing the content development process, ensuring that the digital materials produced are both relevant and aligned with Tanzania’s educational objectives.
During the first phase, Aspire will roll out 16 digital courses, 12 academic and four vocational, within 12 months.
These will include over 1,000 instructional videos comprising more than 150 hours of content, over 4,000 practice questions, and over 1,500 learning materials such as lesson summaries, quizzes, and homework sheets.
Furthermore, Aspire will train and work with 20 to 25 Tanzanian teachers and subject experts, ensuring that the project remains localized, relevant, and sustainable.
An education policy analyst based in Dar es Salaam, Dr Rose Mbwana noted: “We saw a huge learning gap during the pandemic… “This new partnership, if well-executed, has the potential to close that divide and ensure we don’t repeat that inequality in future crises.”
The government has declared its ambition to become a digital economy, and education is central to that transformation.
The Ministry of Information, Communication and Information Technology is already investing in national broadband infrastructure, while the Universal Communications Service Access Fund (UCSAF) is supporting ICT labs in schools.
“Education is the cornerstone of a digital economy,” said a digital development expert, Dr Elia Kimambo.
“If students can’t access quality digital learning from an early age, we’ll have a generation unprepared for a tech-driven job market.”
For this partnership to truly transform Tanzanian education, experts urge the government and partners to invest in off-grid energy solutions such as solar for schools in remote areas, expand affordable internet access, and ensure local language support and inclusive content for learners with disabilities.
