Engineers Registration Board (ERB) Registrar Steven Mlote
The local market requires over 7.500 annually trained technicians to cope with demand of five technicians per engineer to support the growing economy.
Engineers Registration Board (ERB) Registrar Steven Mlote said in Dar es Salaam that with some 1,500 graduate engineers each year, the ratio of technicians to engineers is falling, crippling the development works.
“Engineers are corner stones of development in any country because they foresee all important development works,” Engineer Mlote said at a press conference to accredit Dar es Salaam-based Saint Joseph’s College of Engineering and Technology (SJCET) as a university.
Eng Mlote who is also Chairman of the university council said despite the Tanzania Commission for Universities granting SJCET a university status to run first degree and other higher education courses, the college will continue offering diploma courses. “We will continue training technicians because they are important professionals to the development of our country,” Eng Mlote noted.
The college, established in 2003 by Catholic Daughters of Mary Immaculate from India, has been offering Diploma courses in civil engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science and communication. The college which is under Saint Joseph’s Group of Institutions also runs Songea based Institute of Information Technology and Dar es Salaam based Tanzania Institute of Management.
The Group’s Director of International Operations, Dr Thomson Ananth said the college will offer free hostel services to female candidates pursuing diploma courses in engineering as an incentive to more women to join the trade currently dominated by men.
Dr Ananth stressed that although the college has been upgraded to university which means more degree courses will be introduced, the focus on technical diploma courses won’t be ignored to assist the country meet growing needs of technicians.
“Technicians are a key profession to the country’s development and as the president told us in 2009 when he came to our graduation ceremony, we will continue training this group of people,” he pointed out. According to a recent Food and Agriculture Organisation survey, Tanzania has over 11,000 graduate engineers who need to be supported by over 55,000 technicians but the latter is said to be lagging behind by far after major technical colleges such as Mbeya Technical College, Ardhi.
By FINNIGAN WA SIMBEYE, Tanzania Daily News
