Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 29 June -10 July 2009 Initiated by the Kigali Call for Action, the UNESCO Basic Education Programme in Africa (BEAP) was established to develop partner countries’ capacity to expand and reform basic education, for an uninterrupted duration of a minimum of 9 years. Since its inception, the BEAP has increasingly gained importance, thanks to the sustainable and close collaboration of key partners. Remarkable advances have been made as more and more countries get involved. The Programme is referred to as one of the Main Lines of Action in Africa, under UNESCO’s 35 C/5. IBE is playing an active role in supporting BEAP, as relevance, quality and equity of education through curriculum has proven to be the essence of the Programme. After regional conferences launching BEAP in The Gambia, Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire – countries of the initial phase of BEAP –, Tanzania was the fourth country to request support from BEAP. IBE contributed to the 4th Regional Conference of BEAP in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, 20-24 April 2009), during which ministerial representatives from Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, The Gambia, Djibouti, Seychelles and Uganda jointly assessed their needs in the areas of curriculum, teacher development, school development and capacity building. Regarding curriculum, it was identified that:
- The capacity of curriculum developers and implementers at national and regional level needs to be further developed;
- Crosscutting issues need to be re-considered and incorporated according to country needs, rather than with a donor-driven approach;
- A more research-based approach needs to be adopted for curriculum change.
These challenges and needs are precisely the ones examined in the IBE’s draft Worldwide Resource Pack for Capacity Building in Curriculum Development (WWRP). BEAP main partners adopted the plan of pilot-testing the draft WWRP through a 10-day sub-regional capacity building workshop for curriculum developers and teacher trainers, to be held from 29 June to 10 July 2009 in Dar es Salaam. It is envisioned that the Resource Pack, once improved after the pilot period, will be adaptable to various contexts and needs for training purposes within different frameworks, including the BEAP.
This activity, jointly coordinated by IBE, BREDA, UNESCO Dar es Salaam and the Tanzanian Institute of Education (TIE), will involve high-level curriculum developers and teacher trainers from the majority of the BEAP’s pilot countries. The IBE will be in charge of designing and carrying out capacity building activities, based on the draft WWRP which contains three volumes: Conceptual Framework, Training Manual and Resources.
