Improving programming education in Tanzania: teachers’ and students’ perceptions

Abstract

Contextualization of curriculum and course contents has been central to the development of IT education at Tumaini University in rural Tanzania. However, as the development of the IT program has progressed, pedagogical challenges have become increasingly evident. The pedagogical difficulties materialize most markedly in programming courses. This paper reports an empirical study of students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the challenges of programming education in Tanzania. The results support the anecdotal evidence from various developing countries that programming education is hindered by shallow learning strategies, unfamiliar pedagogical approaches, language problems, extrinsic motivations, free-riding in group assignments, and cultural ifferences.