Oxfam
International Position Paper
The state of
education in Tanzania
Tanzania
made major achievements in primary education until the early
1980s. The goal of Universal Primary Education (UPE) was declared
following independence, and gross enrolment rates in primary
education peaked at 96% in the late 1970s. These were remarkable
levels when compared with much of sub-Saharan Africa. However,
since the late 1980s there has been a serious decline in primary
education standards, leading to a sharp deterioration in
performance.
Enrolment rates for children of primary school age have fallen to
around 75%. Even this understates the scale of the problem, since
about 6 per cent of children drop-out of school annually, most of
them before they have acquired basic reading and writing skills.
This represents a huge source of inefficiency within the
educational system. Children completing the primary education
cycle typically perform poorly, with over 80 percent scoring less
than 50% in the primary School Leaving Exam - and with girls
achievements consistently lower than boys. Behind this bleak
picture has been a relentless decline in the quality of
education. Classrooms are in extremely poor condition, and
teachers lack even the most basic teaching materials. Estimates
of textbook allocations indicate that there is an average of 1
book per 3 students, with actual distributions to students
frequently lower than this due to management problems, and
generally much worse in remote areas. Over 2.7m pupils lack
chairs and desks. In urban and peri-urban areas overcrowding is a
significant constraint. There is serious lack of morale and
motivation amongst teachers, and wages are low and do not attract
qualified trainees. By 1994, only 37% of teachers were qualified
to Grade A level. Nor do the problems end in the primary sector.
Secondary school enrolment rates of around 5% are among the
lowest in the world.
Tanzania's education deficit represents a massive barrier to
efforts aimed at achieving high growth, and at converting the
benefits of growth into poverty reduction. Achieving universal
primary education and expanding secondary education is vital to
raising productivity in agriculture and manufacturing. Early
advances in girls education are especially important, both
because of the high rates of economic return associated with
them; and because of the associated benefits for women and
children. In Tanzania, as in other countries, there are
particularly strong correlations between maternal education
levels and infant/child mortality rates.
The Basic Education Master Plan
The Government of Tanzania acknowledges the crucial role of
education in national development, and has developed, in
co-operation with donors, ambitious plans for reform. The Basic
Education Master Plan 1997-2002 (BEMP) incorporates learning from
a range of government and donor initiatives, within a sectoral
framework for education. Costs are estimated at $375m. The BEMP
has set clear targets for improvement in basic education for the
plan period, and attempts to define mechanisms to improve basic
education in a range of ways. These targets include:
•increasing gross enrolment to 85%;
•completion rates of 80% with 20% gain in student
performance;
•building the education share of the recurrent budget to 25%
(this will still only bring spending on education to 1994
levels);
•raising the primary education share of the education budget
to 65%;
•raising the non-salary portion of the recurrent budget from
7 to 20%
•raising average pupil teacher ratios from 36 to 45;
•institutional and management reforms,
•and an expected development budget of US$45-60m per annum
over 1997-20001.
The BEMP is not without problems. For instance, it envisages cuts
in the real wages of teachers and massive retrenchments at a time
when morale in the teaching profession is low, and when the
intake of trainee teachers has fallen. The plan itself
acknowledges that there are also resource gaps in the recurrent
budget which must be addressed if the quality of education is to
be increased. These amount to around $15m per annum. Given that
the appalling quality of education is one of the main factors
behind low enrolment rates, as well as poor student performance,
this issue is clearly of critical importance. Yet with external
debt continuing to claim such a large share of government
revenue, it is difficult to see how the resource gap can be
bridged in the absence of a reduction in debt. Another
difficulty, and source of considerable controversy, concerns
parental contributions to basic education. The World Bank and
some donors are powerful advocates of the principle that parents
should meet some of the costs of primary education through
community financing. In practice, public spending on education
has forced parents to meet a growing share of the costs of
education, prompting the Bank to cite this as evidence of a
'willingness to pay'. However, Oxfam's experience is that
educational costs are already imposing extreme hardship on poor
households, excluding many of them from the educational system
(see Box). This raises the question of whether or not the BEMP
should endorse the principle of community financing, or seek to
establish free universal primary education, as the government of
neighbouring Tanzania has attempted to do.
Sending home the children. What price for Tanzania's future?
Uhuru Primary School in Shinyanga town is a large and well built
school, and being an urban school it is better resourced than its
rural counterparts. Oxfam has been supporting the school, and in
particular, children with learning difficulties through the local
Haruma organisation. The school has 962 pupils enrolled, and
there are 10 classrooms. Shella Mandina is the Head-teacher at
Uhuru, and in her view the school is desperately under-resourced.
"We don't have enough classrooms for all those who want to
come. We have to turn some parents away, on a first come, first
served basis... The school fee is Tsh1,000 for the year, with
Tsh1,000 for sports... On first enrolling in Standard 1, parents
should also pay Tsh6,000 towards the price of a desk - though
some parents can't pay it all at once... We just have to remind
the parents, we have to remind them and remind them."
Much of Shella's work is spent on administration, in particular
collecting school fees. "The Town Director is really putting
on pressure. We have to follow the 962 children. We have to go
into classrooms to read out the names of those who are to be sent
home. If I don't take money to the Town Director, he stops my
salary... Even last month [January 1998] my salary was delayed a
week. The same thing is happening everywhere. We waste so much
time on this."
In Shinyanga, things have become worse following the drought of
1996/7 and the floods of 1997/8. The school has tried to raise
money for the building fund. "Now life is very tough after
the drought and now El Ni&tilno floods. We haven't asked the
1998 intake for the Tsh2,000. It is difficult to collect the
school fees. Last year over 300 did not pay. Now they have to pay
for last year as well as this year. For this year about 250 have
paid and 750 not... So we have to remind the parents by sending
home their children during the morning. Usually they are sent
home once a month; we hope they might have money at the end of
the month."
On parent who has children at the school is Mwange, she has four
children, and one of them, Ramdwa, goes to Uhuru. Another child,
Sada, goes to Jomu school because Uhuru was full, and Mwajuma and
Saidi are still too young for school. Mwange is one of Tanzania's
many business women. She sets up a small stall from morning to
evening each day, selling tomatoes, onions, ginger, lemon and
local soap. She'd like to expand to selling maize, rice, cooking
oil, kerosene, salt and better soap, but does not have the money
to expand. Mwange knows the value of education, "I want my
children to have an education." she said, "It is
important for the girls. It will help them get work, to earn
their own living and be able to take care of their family - like
I do now. I went to Standard VII. Education has bought light to
my mind, to help me take care of my children, to keep them
healthy."
Educating Ramdwa and Sada is not easy. "It is difficult for
me to pay the school costs. It is expensive at enrolment.. Ramdwa
needed a new uniform this year. That was Tsh5,000, without shoes,
they are expensive... Sada's uniform is almost as much."
Mwange also has to pay school construction fees of Tsh2,000 for
Uhuru and Tsh3,000 for Jomu, and this is along with enrolment
fees, desk costs and so on. "The school sends Sada home
because I haven't paid... For that day, in fact it was two days,
she just stayed at home. The head-teacher said she had to go back
with Tsh1,000, and it took me two days to collect it. Sada's very
keen on school, so she was disappointed for those two days. She
wants to be at school. Ramdwa was sent home too, one morning. She
stayed home for three days, and went back with Tsh1,000, like
Sada. They have to return with the money... It would be much
easier for the parents if the government would pay for primary
education, so that all the children could go without
worrying."
For families who can't afford these costs, the price that is
eventually paid is the price of lost education for their
children, lost gains in health and future welfare, and for
Tanzania ultimately lost gains in the economy.
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(c) Oxfam 1998
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