Sustainable creative career development pathways for young people in Tanzania : a case study

Tanzania has a rich and diverse cultural history based in community cultural life. However, at present, young people have limited opportunity to exploit this richness of traditional knowledge and engage in creative jobs as their means of future sustainable employment. Hence, the significant challenge remains: how to integrate and enhance the traditional knowledge in a learning strategy, while there is no “inter-ministerial action and institutional mechanisms” (United Nations 2008, 33-35) to promote creative employment for young people. This article reports on a case study that examined how the two Ministries of Culture and Education might work together to support Tanzania’s young people to secure, and engage successfully in creative jobs. The case study employed mixed methods, incorporating questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. The study was undertaken in Dar-Es-Salaam, Mwanza, Bagamoyo, Dodoma, Lindi and Morogoro from July to October, 2012. This paper discusses some of the issues and argues that there is no practical utilization of traditional knowledge and skills in “putting education to work” (UNESCO 2012, 170) for the better prospects of young people and to reveal the story of their lives. Although this study is specific to Tanzania, the case may also apply to other developing countries.

Developing intercultural understanding through Asian-Australian children’s literature.

This PETAA paper discusses how the cross-curriculum priority concerned with developing Asia literacy, namely ‘Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia’, can be significantly advanced through the study of children’s literature. The discussion proceeds from a brief overview of the historical development of Asia literacy to its current place within the Australian Curriculum. It then considers the potential of literature for assisting students and teachers in realising this priority through the Asian-Australian Children’s Literature and Publishing dataset, a research project on AustLit. Finally, it discusses a small selection of texts – two picture books and a novel – with suggestions or prompts for raising students’ intercultural understanding.