PEDAGOGICAL LEADERSHIP IN TEACHER TRAINING FOR SOCIO- ECONOMIC GROWTH AND POVERTY REDUCTION IN TANZANIA: THE CASE OF OPEN UNIVERSITY OF TANZANIA

Abstract

The paper discusses the role Teacher Education and Training can play to make schools instrumental in fighting poverty. It utilizes the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP) of 2005 in Tanzania to argue for type of leadership and teaching strategies which schools can adopt to realize desired socio-economic and cultural transformation, and poverty reduction goals. Data were collected and analyzed from various documents and interviews with leaders and teachers of relatively successful schools in the country which showed that, as an approach, pedagogical leadership techniques could enable student learning transcending beyond immediate school borders to the homes and wider community, hence considered an ideal approach for managing education and schools in Tanzania of NSGRP era. However, the findings also show the approach as working more effectively in decentralized educational systems with administrative and curricular decisions made at lower levels including the grassroots. It was also found that teachers are prime movers of any educational reform, thus a need for re-orientation of teacher education curriculum for both pre-service and in-service participants to enable coping with pedagogical techniques of teaching and leading schools. The paper therefore endorses the inclusion of pedagogical leadership values in Teacher Training programmes if they are to yield NSGRP desired outcomes, genuine decentralization of management and administration of education and training, and re-orientation of teachers every time there are changes to enable them cope with new changes and demands.