THE Tanzania Amateur Volleyball Association (TAVA) is planning for another national level one coaching course with more than 40 primary and secondary schools teachers expected to attend the training early next month.

TAVA Chairman, Augustino Agapa said the course, a continuation of the association development programme, would be conducted from January 6 to 12 in Dodoma. The programme aims to give teachers the required knowledge that would later be passed to beginners.

It is sponsored by the International Volleyball Federation's (FVIB) development fund. "Teachers from primary and secondary schools from all districts in Dodoma are expected to attend the course," said Agapa. He said the similar course was conducted in Rukwa last month when 23 primary and secondary school teachers graduated.

TAVA embarked on conducting national level grade one coaching course to 600 primary and secondary school sports teachers across the country. "Our target is to enable every teacher to coach at least 20 players in schools and by so doing we will have about 10,000 players in schools who have come from good hands of TAVA coaches by the end of next year," he said.

He said the FVIB sponsors the programme implementation in an effort to upgrade the level of volleyball in the country which has substantially dropped. "The level of volleyball is going down in Tanzania. We even acknowledge that the drop was due to the reason that schools' competitions (UMISHUMTA & UMISSETA) were scrapped for a period of ten years.

We have decided to conduct this programme so that teachers and students who are players acquire proper trainings," he said. The TAVA official said by the end of the programme Tanzania will reap players to be useful in the future.

He said similar training have so far been conducted in Zanzibar, Coast region, Tanga, Dar es Salaam, Morogoro , Manyara and Mwanza. "We thank FIVB and CAVB for the support as every region benefits from sports equipment worth 7.5m/-. We urge all regions through sports officers who are ready to host the course to contact TAVA for organizing," he concluded.