In a constructivist world of teaching and learning, opportunities to acquire and develop the knowledge and practical skills necessary to design, establish, and deploy blended learning in vocational education and training (VET) programs delivery is a labour-market-driven. The paper examines VET educator"s pleas about the need for the design, adoption and deployment of blended learning in VET programs delivery in Tanzania. A single case study design with an in-depth interview and focus group discussion was conducted with 15 VET educators in three VET colleges in both Morogoro and Dar es Salaam regions. Snowball and purposive sampling were used to obtain sample respondents. For the data analysis, content analysis was employed to condense data obtained from interviews and focus group discussion. It was found that continuous professional development, institutional arrangements, and support should be provided online to facilitate the design, adoption and use of blended learning in VET. We recommend that locally designed blended learning should be relevant to the environment of both students and teachers. In reality, the interplay between blended learning, imparting knowledge and practical skills remain the key focus of future research.
In Tanzania, the growing demand for education due to massive enrolment in universities calls for adoption of Distance Learning (DL) and e-learning. Other factors for adoption include limited space and pace of learning, pedagogical weaknesses, and shortage of teaching staff. Mzumbe University also experiences the same as it operates satellite teaching centres of Morogoro town, Mbeya, Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Mwanza. This has made the university consider shifting from conventional delivery modes to alternative pedagogical strategies using Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The aim is to ensure effective delivery of quality education. There are opportunities and challenges. The challenges include absence of national and institutional quality assurance system framework on e-learning and distance education, and shortage of teaching staff and ICT facilities. Thus, universities need appropriate budget and resource investment to support capacity building for teaching staff and students, and formulating policies, guidelines and operational framework on distance learning and e-learning.
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