Oxfam Tanzania says it aims to make teachers more professional and help students get quality education.

Oxfam education programme officer Mary Soko told journalists that teachers needed to be taught how to enable a student assimilate and fully understand what was being taught in class.

She was speaking during the forum on community of practice on learner-centered learning in Tanzania.

"The major aim is to create a platform of community of professionals who can share experiences and adopt the best practices in teaching," Ms Soko said.

"Learner-centred teaching is an innovative shift in approach away from traditional 'chalk-and-talk' lecturing and memorisation methods that are generally used in most schools, which tend to be uninspiring and non-engaging for the pupils.

"This has lead to a lack of motivation in many of the teachers; and worse still, often high truancy and dropouts in their students," she said.

She added that over 20 papers would be presented in the forum, and participants would discuss them and seek ways to solve problems the education sector in the country was facing.

The three-day-forum, which started yesterday at the Tanzania Episcopal Conference in Dar es Salaam, would also look into ways of creating opportunities for teaching professionals in the country.

"The new curriculum given by the Ministry of Education, which focuses on practical approach, has also stimulated us to fund this forum with the cooperation of Tanzania Education Network so that students in Tanzania can be able to practice what they learn in class," Ms Soko said.

The director inspection in the Ministry of Education, Ms Marystela Wazewa, who officiated at the forum on behalf of the permanent secretary, said education stakeholders support the curriculum instead of criticising it.

"Let's work together in accepting the changes of our curriculum so that we can improve our education system because changes are supposed to occur for development to take place," she said. Over 60 participants are attending the forum.