Activities in Tanzania

Project for Irrigation Human Resource Development by Strengthening the Capacity of Arusha Technical College

Type	Area	Period	Tanzania Organization	Cost (Mill. Yen)
Tech	Arusha	Jun. 2014 –	Ministry of Education and Vocational Traning	134

JICA expert guiding at a cultivated land, ATC

Irrigation human resource development has been a critical issue in Tanzania as there is wide gap between the demand of human resources and the actual supply. To fill this gap, Arusha Technical College (ATC) launched a Civil and Irrigation Engineering programme at engineer's and technician level. JICA dispatched experts to support ATC for capacity building of academic staff in teaching both theory and practical in Civil and Irrigation Engineering; improving education material; and designing and construction of demo fields for irrigation.

As a result of ATC's endeavor and the cooperation by Japanese experts, the College has enrolled a total of 206 students for the progarmme in the academic year 2013/14, 62.1% of which are at technician level (Diploma) and the rest 37.9% are at Bachelor's degree level. On 18th January, 2014, for the first time, ATC produced 21 graduates of Bachelor of Civil and Irrigation Engineering.

While such tangible results are being observed at ATC, there still remain some challenges, namely inadequate funds for construction of irrigation water sources, proper design and construction of field irrigation demonstration plots/farms, completion of construction of Irrigation Building to accommodate the new programme, procurement of laboratory equipment and above all, capacity development of the staff of ATC.

This new technical cooperation project is tackling with those challenges and to continuously develop the capacity of ATC especially in terms of irrigation human resource development. Further, it focusses on the improvement of modules of hydrology and design of irrigation schemes as well as improvement of the curriculum of Civil and Irrigation Engineering programme, thus achieving the high quality of the education at ATC.