Abstract:
Information literacy (IL) subject plays a significant role in
imparting life-long reading habit among University students which
also enables students to become skillful information users in problem
solving. The current number of Universities in Tanzania is 68, where
25 are public universities and 43 private universities. Moshi district is
among the areas in Tanzania where some of these Universities are
located. Since information is an essential commodity in academic and
socio-economic development, integrating information literacy subject in
the Universities curricular becomes of great important. The main
objective was to assess if Universities in Kilimanjaro region have
integrated information literacy subject in their curricular. Specifically,
the study intended; to examine how information literacy have been
integrated at Moshi Co-operative University (MoCU), Mwenge Catholic
University (MWECAU) and Stefano Moshi Memorial University
College (SMMUCo), to identify the role that has been played by
Universities librarians in imparting information literacy skills to students and to assess challenges facing the integration of information
literacy subject in the Universities curricular. The design of the study
is multiple-case study which MoCU, MWECAU and SMMUCo were
used. The study found out that all three Universities have not
integrated IL subject in their curricular. With regard to the challenges
towards integrating IL subject, study found that, the current Tanzania
Education Policy has not stated whether or not it is mandatory for all
Universities in Tanzania to integrate IL subject in their curricular.
There are no institutional policies which provide guidelines of
integrating IL subject in their curricular and lack of librarian’s
involvement in curriculum development creates more difficulties. The
study has also recommended that, Tanzania Education Policy of 1995
has to be revised to accommodate this important aspect, there should
be involvement of librarians in curriculum development and
institutional top management should support the efforts of integrating
IL in their curricular.
