ADB gives $22.16 million for education projects

The African Development Fund has given Tanzania a total of US $22.16 million to finance the country's vocational education and training projects, the bank reported on Wednesday. A statement issued from the bank's headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia, said the grant was aimed at improving the country's distribution of vocational and technical training facilities for primary and secondary school leavers. The bank said its board of directors had approved the grant to support the Strategic Action Plan for Vocational Education and Training Project in the country, within the framework of the implementation of the post primary education and training component of the Education Sector Development Programme. The project comprises improved access to vocational education and training; capacity building and cost effective training; and project management, the bank added. It said that implementation of the project would involve the provision of 32 new workshops in vocational training centres; 12 classrooms, 10 dormitories for boys and girls, five libraries and resource centres as well as 30 units of staff accommodation. "The main objectives of the project are to increase access to better equipped vocational education and training institutions; to upgrade the quality and improve the management and delivery of vocational education and training programmes, in line with labour-market skill requirements," the bank said. It added that the project would help in increasing the contribution of the labour force to socio-economic development and the reduction of income-poverty by ensuring the appropriate vocational skills required by the formal and informal sectors of the economy. "It will contribute to the reduction of unemployment, and reduce regional disparities in the capacity to relate labour-market requirements to adequate vocational training offerings," the bank said. The bank's lending activities in Tanzania began in 1971, and to date it has financed 65 operations amounting to $1.072 billion.