RADIO BRIDGE OVERSEAS

presents:
FIVE STORIES FROM TANZANIA
© 1998 RADIO BRIDGE OVERSEAS TRUST

We meet these girls at Matuli Primary School in Bagamoyo district, some 120 km from Dar-es-Salaam. They are not shy to sing before a group of close to 400 other young children who are sitting in rows - and before us the visitors from the capital city.
When the text of the song is translated, we discover, it is not the usual welcome-song.
"Our school has no books to read and write," sing these girls.
"We don't have enough teachers. We don't have chairs and desks.
We need classrooms."
Behind them is a building which still has to be plastered and have window panes and doors fitted. It still does not have any flooring.

Tanzania made major achievements in primary education until the early 1980s. The goal of Universal Primary Education was declared following independence in 1963 and gross enrolment rates in primary education peaked at 96% in the late 1970s. These were remarkable levels compared with much of Sub Saharan Africa. However, since the late 1980s, enrolment rates for children of primary school age have fallen to around 75%. What happened?
The late 1980s were marked by transition from socialism to free market economy. The terms were set by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. With the acceptance of their policies the government had to cut funding of social services, including education. Today, 40% of Tanzania's budgetary expenditure goes to debt repayments, another 40% is allocated to salaries. Foreign debt problems have been a major factor behind Tanzania's poor and deteriorating human development performance.

Alexander Ndeki
is the Commissioner of Education with Tanzania's Ministry of Education and culture.

Listen to him & get some ideas from:

Listen / STORY 3 / 06'24"
"Why schools in Tanzania decay"

Alexander Ndeki and his colleagues have prepared a plan of action. The plan is meant to meet a proposal from within the donor community to write off debts on condition that the government would use the money that it has to put aside to pay off the debts for financing the education sector.

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