Chapter 1 - DPG Tanzania

SACMEQ Educational Policy Research Series The SACMEQ II Project in Tanzania:
A Study of the Conditions of Schooling
and the Quality of Education.
Tanzania
Working Report by Aminiel S. Mrutu Godfrey E. Ponera Emmanuel M. Nkumbi Ministry of Education and Culture
SACMEQ Ministry of Education and
Culture,
Harare, Zimbabwe Tanzania
Contents Chapter 1 The Setting for the Study 5 Chapter 2 The Conduct of the Study 19 Chapter 3 Pupils' Characteristics 51 Chapter 4 Teachers' Characteristics 101 Chapter 5 School Heads' Characteristics 152 Chapter 6 Equity 183 Chapter 7 The Reading and Mathematics Achievement Levels 193 Chapter 8 Conclusion and Agenda for Action 223 References 241 Appendices 245
Foreword The 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 UNESCO's
Harare Cluster Office and is managed by a Director who works under the
guidance of a six-member Managing Committee. SACMEQ's Assembly of Ministers
meets every two years and provides overall policy guidance concerning
SACMEQ's mission and programmes. The focus of SACMEQ's 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
- SACMEQ's 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 1 The setting for the study Introduction Tanzania 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 economy Agriculture is the mainstay of Tanzania's 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: Tanzania's economy: A summary Contribution Sector (as % of Total GDP)
Agriculture 44.7
Restaurants, hotels and tourism 11.9
Finance, real estate and business services 14.3
Manufacturing 7.3
Public and other services 10.3
Transport and communication 4.7
Construction 5.4
Mining and quarrying 1.8
Electricity and water 1.7
(Less bank services) -1.9
Total 100.2 Source: Economic Survey 2003 published in 2005
The perceived importance of SACMEQ
This 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 Tanzania
At 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,