This chapter explores the challenges and opportunities during teaching and learning in digital transformation, specifically focusing on Tanzanian teachers. To address the challenges facing the traditional model of delivering education, this book chapter explains how the infrastructure and resources and their accessibility during the digital transformation in teaching and learning are most important. The chapter highlights some opportunities and skills resulting from digital transformation in education, and those opportunities can be personalized learning, global accessibility, and innovation of teaching methods. Also, despite these opportunities, this chapter illuminates challenges that can arise during the digital transformation in teaching and learning. Document analysis and semi-structured interviews helped us collect many opinions and suggestions. Therefore, the chapter aims to contribute valuable insights to educators and policymakers since they can understand the complexities involved and guide future efforts toward an effective digital transformation in Tanzanian education.
TopIntroduction
In an era of rapid technological advancement, various organizations have recently prioritized digital transformation (DT) in the fifth industrial revolution era to maintain a solid competitive advantage (Raphael, 2022). Technology integration in education has been a growing concern in recent years, focusing on using technology to enhance the teaching and learning process. Digital transformation is associated with everyday life, including the higher education process (Schwab, 2017). Therefore, integrating digital tools in education has become a global phenomenon. Digital transformation has the potential to revolutionize education. The digital transformation process focuses on efficiency and digital innovation to enhance existing physical products with digital capabilities (Berghaus & Back, 2016). Digital transformation is a strategic and prioritized transformation of business activities, processes, and competencies to total leverage and changes and opportunities through digital technologies and their impact across the whole society worldwide (Demirkan, Spohrer, & Welser, 2016). Furthermore, growing digital transformation has had a crucial effect on the country’s economic and socio-cultural frameworks through enhanced vital services and improved productivity in economic sectors (Okeleke, 2016). So, the advent of technology plays a significant role in this transformation, particularly in the education sector worldwide, particularly in Tanzania, where the dominant use of traditional educational models faces numerous challenges. As Tanzania strives for educational excellence, adopting digital transformation presents challenges and opportunities. Additionally, every education institution insists on setting up a strategy towards digital transformation by considering digital infrastructure, building academic staff's capacity to use digitally-based teaching-learning methods, and improving students’ digital skills (Raphael, 2022). The chapter begins by highlighting the current state of education in Tanzania and examining the challenges of digital transformation in Tanzanian education. It discusses the state of digital infrastructure in Tanzania, highlighting how its limitations can hinder the adoption of digital technologies in education. It also discusses the issue of access to digital resources and how disparities in access can hinder the whole process of digital transformation in education. The chapter also delves into the importance of digital literacy and skills development, arguing that these are crucial for leveraging digital technologies effectively in education.
Despite these challenges, digital transformation also presents significant opportunities for Tanzanian education. The chapter discusses how digital technologies can enable personalized learning, tailoring educational content to meet individual learners’ needs. It also highlights how these technologies can facilitate global accessibility, breaking down geographical barriers to education. Furthermore, the chapter explores how digital transformation can lead to innovative teaching methods, fostering a more engaging and effective learning environment. By providing an overview of these challenges and opportunities, this chapter aims to offer valuable insights for educators, policymakers, and all education stakeholders, guiding them in harnessing the potential of digital transformation to enhance the quality and accessibility of education in Tanzania.
Therefore, this chapter aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the complex digital transformation issues in education regarding changing education needs and systems. The main concern of this study is to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by Tanzanian teachers in the context of digital transformation in education. As a result, the following questions will be answered: (1) To examine the adoption and integration of digital technologies by Tanzanian teachers in their teaching and learning practices; (2) to identify the teacher's perceptions of their digital skills and the pedagogical impact of their technology use in Tanzania; (3) To identify the challenges Tanzanian teachers face in integrating digital technologies into their teaching practices; (4)To investigate the opportunities of digital technologies to improve teaching and learning in Tanzanian schools.