The SACMEQ II project in Tanzania a study of the conditions of schooling and the quality of education.doc

SACMEQ Educational Policy Research SeriesThe SACMEQ II Project in Tanzania: A Study of the Conditions of Schooling and the Quality of Education.TanzaniaWorking ReportbyAminiel S. MrutuGodfrey E. PoneraEmmanuel M. NkumbiMinistry of Education and CultureSACMEQMinistry of Education and Culture,Harare, ZimbabweTanzaniaContentsChapter 1The Setting for the Study5Chapter 2The Conduct of the Study19Chapter 3Pupils Characteristics51Chapter 4 Teachers Characteristics101Chapter 5School Heads Characteristics152Chapter 6Equity183Chapter 7The Reading and Mathematics Achievement Levels193Chapter 8Conclusion and Agenda for Action223References241Appendices245ForewordThe origins of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) date back to 1991, the year when several Ministries of Education in Eastern and Southern Africa started working closely with the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) on the implementation of integrated educational policy research and training programmes.In 1995 these Ministries of Education formalized their collaboration by establishing a network that is widely known as SACMEQ. Fifteen Ministries are now members of SACMEQ: Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania (Mainland), Tanzania (Zanzibar), Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. SACMEQ is registered in Zimbabwe as an Independent Intergovernmental Non-profit Organization. Its Coordination Centre is located within UNESCOs Harare Cluster Office and is managed by a Director who works under the guidance of a six-member Managing Committee. SACMEQs Assembly of Ministers meets every two years and provides overall policy guidance concerning SACMEQs mission and programmes. The focus of SACMEQs capacity building programmes has been on building the capacity of Ministries of Education to monitor and evaluate the quality of their basic education systems. SACMEQ employs innovative training approaches that include a combination of face-to-face training, hands-on experience, computer laboratory sessions, and on-line support via the Internet. SACMEQ also encourages a unique form of collaboration among SACMEQ National Research Coordinators in the fifteen member countries as they share and exchange skills and successful experiences.In September 2004 SACMEQ was awarded the Comenius Medal for its innovative approaches to delivering cross-national educational research and training programmes.This report provides a description of the results of the SACMEQ II Project - SACMEQs second major educational policy research project. The results of the SACMEQ I Project were reported in seven national reports for Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania (Zanzibar).The SACMEQ Data Archive was launched in June 2004. This valuable information resource contains data, data collection instruments, manuals, technical papers, and related publications from both SACMEQ projects. Copies of the archive may be obtained by completing the registration form on the SACMEQ Website (www.sacmeq.org).Saul Murimba,Director, SACMEQ Co-ordination Centre,Harare, Zimbabwe.Chapter 1The setting for the studyIntroductionTanzania Mainland lies between 10 and 120 south of equator and between 290 and 410 east of the Greenwich Meridian. It shares a border with Kenya and Uganda to the north and Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia to the south. To the east lies the Indian Ocean while Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo are to the west. Tanzania has a landmass of 881,000 square kilometres and, according to the 2002 population census, it has a population of 33.6 million people. The population growth rate is 2.9 percent per annum. The population consists of people from about 120 different tribes, each with its own language. However Kiswahili is spoken by all tribes and is the national language as well as the main language of official communication while English is the second official language. Kiswahili is the medium of instruction in primary schools while English is used as the medium of instruction in secondary schools and in post-secondary education. Christianity and Islam are the main religions practised by more than 90 percent of the population, but each has many different sects. Tanzania was a British protectorate for 42 years, that is, from 1918 to 1960 before it became independent in 1961. It is a multiparty state and enjoys strong friendship and cooperation with its neighbours mainly through its membership to the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). The economyAgriculture is the mainstay of Tanzanias economy, and it contributed 47.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2002. Other main economic activities contributing to the GDP are construction (5.0%), manufacturing (8.4%), mining and quarrying (2.7 %), trade, hotels, restaurants including tourism 16.6%), transport and communication (5.5%), financial, insurance, real estate, and business services (10.0%), public and other services (7.3%) electricity and water (1.6%). In 2002, the GPD growth rate was 6.2 percent and the per capita GDP is 256,490 Tanzanian shillings (shs) at 2002 prices where one US dollar was equivalent to 265.4 shs. However the income disparity is large and there are many families, especially in rural areas, that depend on subsistence farming. About 50 percent of the population lives below the poverty datum line. The national transport system is being reworked through construction of trunk roads which when complete will connect almost all regional towns. The contribution of the other sectors to the economy has been summarised in Table 1.1. Table 1.1: Tanzanias economy: A summary Contribution Sector(as % of Total GDP)Agriculture44.7Restaurants, hotels and tourism11.9Finance, real estate and business services14.3Manufacturing 7.3Public and other services10.3Transport and communication 4.7Construction 5.4Mining and quarrying 1.8Electricity and water 1.7(Less bank services) -1.9Total100.2Source: Economic Survey 2003 published in 2005The perceived importance of SACMEQThis study is part of the work of the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ). The collection of data for the SACMEQ II study took place in 1999-2000 and this publication reports the results of this study. SACMEQ II focussed on Standard 6 and it assessed achievement in both mathematics and reading literacy.Before SACMEQ II, the only indicator of the achievement of pupils was from the Standard 7 Primary School Leaving Certificate. One problem was that these data is that they were not regularly analysed to examine either the differences in achievement between the educational administrative zones or subgroups of pupils in the country across different points in time. The SACMEQ II study is expected to generate very useful policy suggestions and a policy agenda for action by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC). These policy suggestions will not only dwell on the Standard 6 achievement in reading literacy and numeracy but also with actions required in order to improve the conditions of learning in the schools. It will also enable the Ministry to monitor change, if any, in many key education indicators in the various zones since the time of SACMEQ II onwards.School education in TanzaniaAt the time of independence, around 488,476 children (27% of an age group) were enrolled in primary school. Enrolment in secondary schools was 11,832, which was only 2.4 percent of the children enrolled in primary schools. During the mid seventies, the Ministry made the first significant strides in opening up access to and participation in primary education for all children of school age by providing adequate teachers and necessary school buildings in all parts of the country. By 1982, Tanzania had very nearly achieved universal primary education (UPE), with around 98 percent of children in school. These impressive achievements, were, unfortunately, not sustained. Nevertheless, the efforts were renewed following the adoption of the Education and Training Policy of 1995 that was implemented through the Primary Education Development Program (PEDP) 2001-2006. The target of the PEDP was, among others, to ensure that all school age children were admitted in school by year 2006. During its first year of implementation, that is year 2002, there was tremendous expansion of enrolment with Gross Enrolment rates (GERs) and Net Enrolment rates (NERs) reaching 98.6% and 80.7% respectively compared to GERs and NERs of 84.0 percent and 65.0 percent respectively during year 2001. Although most parents see the value of education and send their children to school, there are still some areas where the parents have not yet fully appreciated the value of education. Nevertheless, good progress continues to be registered, and the goal of PEDP is to ensure that all children of school going age are enrolled in school by the year 2006.Financing of educationThe provision of education has continued to be Government's priorities. The average percentage of the government budget devoted to education in the period 1995/96-2000/01 was 24.15 percent of the national discretionary expenditure budget (i.e. total recurrent budget less debt service etc). The allocation to the various aspects of education, in percentage terms, has been presented in Table 1.2 (using averages for the time period 1995/6-2000/01).Table 1.2: Percentage of budget spent on the different levels of educationLevel of educationPercentage of Education BudgetPrimary65.90Secondary 8.07Tertiary21.37Teacher Training 2.17Administrative costs (including repayment of loans, etc) 2.49Source: Basic Statistics in Education (2003)Main education reformsSeveral reforms were implemented in the 1990s following the release of the 1982 report of the education sector analysis (Makweta Report, 1982). These reforms were also prompted by other government macro level policy reforms that necessitated corresponding changes in the education sector. The review of the primary, secondary, and teacher education curricula was accomplished in 1993. This review involved the revision of syllabi and textbooks, the production of teacher guides and the orientation of teachers in the use of the new teaching materials and methodologies in order to make them more relevant to the realities of Tanzanias overall context. The Education and Training Policy (ETP) of 1995 provides the vision and mission that guides the development of the entire education and training sector. The major objectives of this policy are to expand access to education, achieve equity in its provision, and enhance the quality of the education offered. Furthermore, it seeks to ensure optimum utilisation of facilities, and therefore achieve operational efficiency at all levels of the system. The other broad policy aims include enhancing partnerships in the delivery of education, broadening the financial base of the sector, achieving greater cost effectiveness in education, and streamlining education management structures through the devolution of authority to schools, local communities and local authorities (LAs). The ETP, in turn, promoted the development of the Policy for Science, Technology, and Higher Education in 1997. The 1995 ETP was followed in 1996 by the development the Basic Education Master Plan (BEMP) whose objective was to translate into action areas of the ETP that were related to the basic education sub sector. In 1997 the sector-wide approach, namely, the Education Sector Development Programme (ESDP) was adopted to establish new relationships with key players in education using pooled human, financial, and material resources for the tasks of managing education, and thus enhancing partnerships, facilitating co-ordination, and instilling a sense of ownership amongst all stakeholders in education. This culminated in the development of the Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP) 2002-2006. The PEDP is a five-year plan that articulates the vision of UPE within a decentralised mode and the framework of the Local Government Reform Programme, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, and the Tanzania Development Vision 2025. It covers the provision of primary education, including education for out-of-school children and youth as well as capacity development of personnel and structures at the local level. The targets of priority investment under PEDP are the expansion of access through a focus on classroom construction, teacher recruitment and teacher deployment, quality improvement encompassing through in-service and pre-service teacher training, and increasing teaching and learning materials provision. PEPD also aims to effect system-wide management improvements through a range of capacity building efforts.Structure of education in TanzaniaTanzanias formal education system follows a 2-7-4-2-3+ structure. The first 2 years comprise pre-primary education followed by 7 years of primary education, 4 years of ordinary level secondary education, and 2 years advanced level secondary education. University education ordinarily covers a minimum of 3 years.(a) Pre-primary educationThe provision and management of pre-primary education rests with the government, individuals or private institutions. About 581,022 of children aged 5 to 6 years were enrolled in 9,569 pre-primary schools during 2002. Pre-primary education is not compulsory. Pre-school teachers are required to undergo formal training before they can teach in pre-schools. There are far more pre-primary institutions in urban areas than there are in rural areas. Enrolment in these schools is expected to increase steadily as more preschool classes open on government primary school premises. (b)Primary educationPrimary school covers Standards 1 to 7 and the legal age of entry to primary school is 7 years. At independence in 1961, there were 3,342 primary schools and 65 secondary schools in Tanzania. Since the declaration of Education for All in the early 1970s, there has been a steady increase in primary school enrolments. These efforts were renewed by the adoption of the 1990 Jomtien Declaration on Education for All. As a result, by 2002 there were 12,152 primary schools with 5,981,338 pupils enrolled.Usually Standard 1 and 2 have classroom teachers while the others have subject-matter teachers. Thus, from Standard