Teacher Professional Development in Tanzania: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

This chapter is about teacher professional development in Tanzania. The authors have examined the current status of teacher professional development in Tanzania, focusing on predominant perspectives on the concept and provision modalities. In addition, the authors have identified challenges facing teacher professional development in Tanzania, most of which seem to be systemic. The challenges include lack of explicit policy and guidelines for teacher professional development, limited knowledge on teacher professional development among teacher professional development stakeholders, predominance of traditional approach to teacher professional development, and ineffective organization of teacher professional development activities. It is, thus, concluded that a number of opportunities are available for effective teacher professional development in Tanzania. These include strengthening the available institutions responsible for teacher professional development, making use of different teacher professional development providers available in the country to promote professional development activities for teachers through a harmonized scheme and capitalizing on the use of different communication networks and the national optic fiber to promote self-directed teacher professional development.