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Africa is the most youthful continent in the world with approximately 20% of the global youth population, which is expected to increase by 42% by the end of 2030. This great number of youths, which could be used as a huge asset for the continent's economic growth and development, is largely unemployed. As a result, governments have introduced Vocational Education and Training (VET) by providing occupation-oriented training in a bid to reduce unemployment amongst youth. Despite these efforts, the majority of VET graduates remain unemployed due to the inadequate employability skills needed in the current job market. This study reports on the implementation of a project aiming at enhancing employability skills through ICT in four centres in Tanzania: Nangwa VTC, Manyara VTC, Arusha VTC, and Mto wa Mbu FDC, as well as Ketumbeine secondary school with a total of 100 students and 20 teachers. Through participating in the project, it was expected that students would gain the ICT skills as well as the 21st-Century skills required in their current workplaces. At the end of the project, an evaluation was conducted using a self-administered survey, where a total of 80 students were involved in the four centres. Moreover, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), non-participatory observation, and documentary review were adopted as qualitative data instruments. It was found that students' perceived competence and level of skills on technology knowledge of multimedia was moderate (M = 3.63), while that of CISCO was found to be high, with 76 students having graduated and obtained a CISCO certification. In terms of the 21st-Century skills, it was found that students' self-reported confidence levels in all four 21st-Century skills domains were found to be high, with collaboration skills (M = 4.5) being the highest, followed by communication skills (M = 4.26), leadership (M = 4.20) and creativity and innovation (M = 4.06). Nonetheless, the lowest 21st-Century skills element was critical thinking skills (M = 3.9). The findings from this study show that with some planned activities within colleges, students can easily acquire the needed employability skills. The implication of these findings are discussed at the end of the paper.

Software developers nowadays are adopting agile methods to overcome challenges faced by traditional methods in developing software. However, agile methods lack instructional design to take care of learning needs required in designing software for supporting teaching and learning. This study aimed at designing an integrated model using Feature Driven Development Process (FDDP) and Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (ADDIE) model to accommodate learning needs at design stage. Participatory action research method and four design strategies including decompositional, compositional, template based, and incremental and evolutionary strategies were used in designing the integrated ADDIE-FDDP Model. A case study of designing Interactive Multimedia Content for Life Skills Education (IMCLSE) was used to test the model, especially its analysis and design phases. A questionnaire was adapted to evaluate the IMCLSE design involving 10 software developers and 65 teachers who teach life skills subjects in 10 primary schools. The results show that software developers and teachers agreed that the integrated FDDP-ADDIE Model was effective in guiding the design process of software that support teaching and learning. Therefore, the integrated FDDP-ADDIE Model can be adopted and used for developing effective and quality learning software.

This article assessed the feasibility of implementing eLearning systems in a cloud-based infrastructure for secondary schools in Tanzania. The study adopted questionnaire and document reviews as data collection tools. A total of 820 students successfully returned the questionnaire from seven secondary schools in Tanzania. The study found that 11% of government secondary schools had computer labs with 20.1% of them connected to the Internet. Moreover, more than half of surveyed students (56.6%) had access to mobile phones at home with 53.5% using the phones to access the Internet. However, the study found that the cost of the Internet had remained unaffordable to many students. This study shows that eLearning implementation in the cloud for secondary schools in Tanzania is feasible. This research will serve as a base for future studies that plan to implement eLearning systems to enhance teaching and learning in secondary schools in Tanzania.

Tanzania is faced with a severe shortage of qualified in-service school science and mathematics teachers. While science and mathematics account for 46% of the curriculum, only 28% of teachers are qualified to teach these subjects. In order to overcome this challenge, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) implemented a project to use multimedia-enhanced content to upgrade subject content knowledge of science and mathematics teachers in secondary schools. A total of 70 topics and 147 subtopics were developed and enhanced with various multimedia elements. The content was used to train 2,000 in-service science and mathematics teachers from secondary schools in 19 selected centers countrywide. However, the presence and availability of this content does not automatically guarantee that teachers will use them. For this content to improve teachers' subject content knowledge, they must be accepted and used by teachers in secondary schools. This study examines factors affecting teachers' acceptance and prolonged use of developed multimedia-enhanced content using the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) as a research framework. A sample of 1,137 teachers out of 2,000 was collected and tested against the research model using regression analysis. With exception of "performance expectancy," all other factors had a statistically significant effect on teachers' acceptance and use of the developed content. The government and other stakeholders can use these findings to develop strategies that will promote acceptance and use of the developed content in secondary schools in Tanzania.

Students in secondary schools in Tanzania have been facing difficulties in conducting laboratory experiments. This has been due to the acute shortage of laboratory facilities and poor teaching methodologies. Consequently, students perceive science subjects as unattractive, difficult and irrelevant to understanding the world around them. An interactive physics experiment was developed and piloted in two schools with 157 students to investigate whether interactive experiments can be used as an alternative to physical experiments. Results show that students found the interactive experiment was easier and more efficient, and, therefore, can be used as an alternative to physical experiments. [NOTE: Issue number shown on this PDF (no. 1) is incorrect. The correct issue number is no. 2.]

The failure rates and lack of interest amongst students in science and mathematics in secondary schools in Tanzania is a serious problem. The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) implemented a project to enhance and upgrade the pedagogical knowledge and subject content knowledge of teachers in selected difficult topics in science and mathematics in secondary education. This article reports on the process involved in the development of multimedia enhanced content that involved teachers, facilitators, and technical staff. The developed content was evaluated for its satisfaction using a sample of 72 experts that included teachers and instructors after using the content for 10 days. Generally, respondents were satisfied with the quality of the developed multimedia enhanced content. However, accuracy had a minimum percentage of users' satisfaction with 37%. This shows that the majority of the content had spelling and grammatical errors that were supposed to have been corrected before producing the final product. Although this is ongoing work, we believe that the lessons learned from our efforts can be useful to similar organizations planning to develop multimedia enhanced content for educational purposes.

E-government information systems (IS) projects experience numerous challenges that can lead to total or partial failure. The project failure factors have been identified and studied by numerous researchers, but the root causes of such failures are not well-articulated. In this study, literature on e-government IS project failures in developing-world contexts is reviewed through the application of qualitative meta-synthesis, design–reality gap analysis, and root cause analysis. In the process, 18 causal factors and 181 root causes are identified as responsible for e-government IS project failures. The most prevalent of the 18 causal factors are found to be inadequate system requirements engineering (with 22 root causes), inadequate project management (19 root causes), and missing or incomplete features (16 root causes). These findings can be of use to future researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to identify methods of avoiding e-government IS failures, particularly in developing-world contexts.

Fault Localisation and Service Restoration (FLSR) is a fundamental function during the distribution system’s fault management process for improved service reliability and resilience. In Tanzania, fault management in the Secondary Distribution Network (SDN) is accomplished manually through customer calls and manual-line inspections. Service restoration’s decision relies on prior experiences, rated capacity of transformers and peak hour demand, causing prolonged service restoration and load shedding. Approaches devised to solve the FLSR problem include centralised and distributed ones. The study aimed at designing and developing a distributed algorithm based on the Multiagent System (MAS) for FLSR in SDN. Data from the Tanzanian utility company, including load demand, distribution network topology, and emergency reports, enabled the development of the MAS for FLSR. An intensive literature review has also been conducted. Five agents, namely Control Agent, Grid Agent, Load Agent, Renewable Distributed Generation Agent and Switch Agent have been developed to support the FLSR process. The agents facilitated decision-making by locating faults and perform a restoration process through load transfer to the nearby transformer and shedding loads. Consideration of the stochastic nature of load demand through using the LSTM model maximised the restored load. Future work will focus on deploying and testing the developed algorithm on a real power system.

Africa is the most youthful continent in the world with approximetly 20% of the global youth population and is expected to increase by 42% by the end of 2030. This great number of youth which can be used as a huge asset for the country’s economic growth and development is largely unemployed. As a result, governments have introduced Vocational Education and Training (VET) by providing occupation oriented trainings in a bid to reduce unemployment amongst youth. Despite these efforts, the majority of VET graduates remain unemployed due to the inadequate employability skills needed in the current job market. This study implemented a project aiming at enhancing employability skills through ICT in four centres: Nangwa VTC, Manyara VTC, Arusha VTC, Mto wa Mbu FDC, and Ketumbeine secondary school with a total of 100 students and 20 teachers. Through participating in the project, it was expected that students would gain the ICT skills as well as the 21st-Century skills required in the current workplace. At the end of the project, an evaluation was conducted using a self-administered survey where a total of 80 students were involved in the four centres. Moreover, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), non-participatory observation, and documentary review were adopted as qualitative data instruments. It was found that that students’ perceived competence and skills levels on technology knowledge of multimedia as moderate (M=3.63) while that of CISCO were found to be high with 76 students graduated and obtained a CISCO certification. In terms of the 21st-Century skills, it was found that students’ self-reported confidence levels in all four 21st-Century skills domains were found to be high with collaboration skills (M=4.5) being the highest followed by communication skills (M=4.26), leadership (4.20) and creativity and innovation (4.06). Nonetheless, the lowest 21st-Century skills element was critical thinking skills (M=3.9). The findings from this study show that with some planned activities within colleges, students can easily acquire the needed employability skills. The implication of these findings are discussed.

This paper presents a survey of recent development in Fault Localisation and Service Restoration (FLSR) following electrical disturbance in Power Distribution Systems (PDS) based on distributed approaches. Distributed approaches have been found to fit well in the distribution systems as they have more than one decision-making component, and data processing can be done in parallel in individual units that makes it faster and requires less processing capabilities centrally. Recently reported distributed approaches have been studied and analysed. With ever-growing integration of the renewable distributed generation (DG) into the distribution systems, it has been realised that, the uncertainty nature of both load demand and DG need to be considered in the service restoration problems for improved efficiency. Consideration of uncertainty nature of the renewable generation and load demands in the distributed FLSR result into the increased restored customers as well as avoiding overloading and underloading after restoration. The paper starts with a general overview of the Multi Agent Systems (MAS) as the distributed control approach and approaches for forecasting load demand and DG power and then discusses different approaches used for FLSR in PDS by showing their strengths and limitations. The review is concluded by giving future research directions.

Tanzania is faced with a severe shortage of qualified in-service school science and mathematics teachers. While science and mathematics account for 46% of the curriculum, only 28% of teachers are qualified to teach these subjects. In order to overcome this challenge, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) implemented a project to use multimedia-enhanced content to upgrade subject content knowledge of science and mathematics teachers in secondary schools. A total of 70 topics and 147 subtopics were developed and enhanced with various multimedia elements. The content was used to train 2,000 in-service science and mathematics teachers from secondary schools in 19 selected centers countrywide. However, the presence and availability of this content does not automatically guarantee that teachers will use them. For this content to improve teachers’ subject content knowledge, they must be accepted and used by teachers in secondary schools. This study examines factors affecting teachers’ acceptance and prolonged use of developed multimedia-enhanced content using the extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) as a research framework. A sample of 1,137 teachers out of 2,000 was collected and tested against the research model using regression analysis. With exception of performance expectancy, all other factors had a statistically significant effect on teachers’ acceptance and use of the developed content. The government and other stakeholders can use these findings to develop strategies that will promote acceptance and use of the developed content in secondary schools in Tanzania.

BackgroundFew data on the virological determinants of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection are available from southern Africa.MethodsWe enrolled consecutive HIV-infected adult patients initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) at two urban clinics in Zambia and four rural clinics in Northern Mozambique between May 2013 and August 2014. HBsAg screening was performed using the Determine® rapid test. Quantitative real-time PCR and HBV sequencing were performed in HBsAg-positive patients. Risk factors for HBV infection were evaluated using Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests and associations between baseline characteristics and high level HBV replication explored in multivariable logistic regression.ResultsSeventy-eight of 1,032 participants in Mozambique (7.6%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.1-9.3) and 90 of 797 in Zambia (11.3%, 95% CI: 9.3-13.4) were HBsAg-positive. HBsAg-positive individuals were less likely to be female compared to HBsAg-negative ones (52.3% vs. 66.1%, p20,000 UI/mL). HBsAg-positive individuals had higher levels of ALT and AST compared to HBsAg-negative ones (both pConclusionOne half of HBsAg-positive patients demonstrated high HBV viremia, supporting the early initiation of tenofovir-containing ART in HIV/HBV-coinfected adults.

The failure rates and lack of interest amongst students in science and mathematics in secondary schools in Tanzania is a serious problem. The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) implemented the project to enhance and upgrade the pedagogical knowledge and subject content knowledge of teachers in selected difficult topics in science and mathematics at secondary education. This article reports on the process involved in the development of multimedia enhanced content that involved teachers, facilitators, and technical staff. The developed content was evaluated for its satisfaction using a sample of 72 experts that included teachers and instructors after using the content for 10 days. Generally, respondents were satisfied with the quality of the developed multimedia enhanced content. However, accuracy had minimum percentage of users’ satisfaction with 37%. This shows that the majority of the content had spelling and grammatical errors that were supposed to be corrected before producing the final product. Although this is ongoing work, we believe that the lessons learned from our efforts can be useful to similar organizations planning to develop multimedia enhanced content for educational purposes.

Students in secondary schools in Tanzania have been facing difficulties in conducting laboratory experiments. This has been due to acute shortage of laboratory facilities and poor teaching methodologies. Consequently, students perceive science subjects as not attractive, difficult and irrelevant to understand the world around them. An interactive physics experiment was developed and piloted in two schools with 157 students to investigate whether interactive experiments can be used as an alternative to physical experiments. Results show that students found the interactive experiment was easier and efficient, and therefore can be used as an alternative to physical experiments.

Recently, different models have been proposed for analyzing the broadband power-line communication (BPLC) systems based on transmission-line (TL) theory. In this paper, we make an attempt to validate one such BPLC model with laboratory experiments by comparing the channel transfer functions. A good agreement between the BPLC model based on TL theory and experiments are found for channel frequencies up to about 100 MHz. This work with controlled experiments for appropriate validation could motivate the application and extension of TL theory-based BPLC models for the analysis of either indoor or low-voltage or medium-voltage channels. Index Terms--Branched network, broadband power line, frequency response, indoor channel, low-voltage channel, medium-voltage channel, multipath, power-line channel, transfer function.