The issue of mismatch between technical education graduates’ skills and labour market demands has been an important discourse in Tanzania as in other developing countries, with employers expressing their concern about poor quality of graduates. Strong partnership between training institutions and employers is considered a vital factor to make training respond to the labour market demands. The study has revealed existence of weak partnership working between technical institutions offering engineering programmes and employers of engineering graduates in terms of collaboration in determining training needs, curriculum development, students’ and teachers’ internships and resource collaboration (finance, human resource, learning facilities). It is therefore recommended to establish strong partnership working to enable technical institutions produce qualified graduates for the labour market.
Keywords: Partnership, Tanzania, engineering industry, technical institutions
