Dodoma — THE government is in the process of increasing the number of technical schools in different parts of the country. There are currently eight such schools only.

Responding to the basic question by Anna Mary Stella Mallac (Special Seats - Chadema) on whether the government was ready to revive job skills programme in both primary and secondary schools to curb unemployment among the youth, the Deputy Minister for Education and Vocational Training, Mr Phillip Mulugo, said it planned to increase such schools.

Mr Mulugo said that job skills were still being taught in schools both at primary and secondary level and that the concept of job skills was very broad and included different ways of how to deal with the hardships of life.

"These skills include education on environment, health, entrepreneurship and social education. In accordance to the Education Policy and Training of 1995, life skills include carpentry, agriculture and livestock, pottery, masonry, blacksmithing, painting and home economics," he explained.

In her supplementary question, Ms Sabrina Sungura (Special Seats - Chadema) wanted to know if there were plans to extend the primary school duration for another four years to impart students with job skills.

But much to her dismay, Mr Mulugo replied that job skills were already taught in primary and secondary schools.

In another development, the government has announced that it was planning to raise entry marks into teacher training colleges in order to improve quality.

In his supplementary question, Mr Albert Obama Ntabaliba (Manyovu -CCM) inquired what it meant for the youths after the government brought down entry points from 28 to 27 and raised the issue of teachers not reporting to their workstations especially in Kigoma where 54 per cent of them had not.

Mr Ntabaliba also wanted the government to establish a university in Kigoma region especially now that oil and gas had been discovered, yet many youths lacked the skills to do specialized jobs that go with the drilling of oil and gas.

Mr Muhugo said that in 2011 when the entry points were at 28, 71,000 students were legible to join but there was only a capacity for 7,000 and even after cutting it down to 27, there were 42,000 legible, yet only 6,800 were needed.