The Dilemmas of Teaching and Assessing Soft Skills and their Implications for Quality of University Graduates in Tanzania

Abstract

The qualifications that matter most for this century are ostensibly related to the demonstrated mastery of essential compet encies referred to as soft skills . Studying academic content ought not to be the goal but rather the means for developing these soft skills. Accordingly, in today ’ s globalised world, what matters is no longer how much you know, but what you can do with wha t you know. Unfortunately, systematic formal teaching and the assessment of soft skills in the classroom is quite rare in most cases. This paper draws several findings, mainly from e xploratory content analysis as corroborated with thematic analysis of semi - structured in - depth interview responses extracted from eight university lecturers and then transcribed verbatim.// Paper ID 36