Making Tanzanian children learn

Among children aged 9 to 13, many are unable to complete Standard 2 work. These are the findings in the newly launched report titled Are our children learning? “The Sixth Uwezo Tanzania Annual Learning Assessment Report 2017.”

Success shares the findings and recommendations of the recently launched report in Dodoma which featured education stakeholders and Members of Parliament.

The new Uwezo data show improvements in basic Kiswahili literacy but inequalities persist across the country. The gap between the lowest and highest performing districts is 60 percentage points.

Iringa Urban, is the best performing district, where by 74 per cent of children aged 9 to 13 are able to pass basic literacy tests in English and Kiswahili and basic numeracy tests, while the corresponding figure in Sikonge is 15 per cent. In Dar es Salaam 64 per cent of children aged 9 to 13 years are able to pass the three tests while 23 per cent of their peers in Katavi can do the same.

The report shows that, four out of ten children (42%) in ultra-poor households passed all three tests compared to close to six out of ten (58%) of their counterparts in non-poor households.

Aidan Eyakuze, Executive Director of Twaweza says that, It is very encouraging to see the improvements in basic Kiswahili literacy among our children, but we still have a very long way to go.

“One cause for worry is the growing inequality in outcomes based on location. Our data indicate that where a child lives has the most profound effect on whether or not they will learn, more than, whether a child’s mother is educated, whether the child attended pre-school or even whether they are stunted or not,” says Eyakuze.

Adding to that, he says, between 2011 and 2015 the pass rates for Kiswahili among Standard 3 pupils almost doubled from 29 per cent to 56 per cent. In Standard 7, the pass rate has increased from 76 per cent to 89 per cent during the same period.

Zaida Mgalla, Manager of Uwezo Tanzania, says when we talk about learning at schools majority thinks of children enrolment and examination performances, we forget to ask ourselves are the children enrolled at the right age? Or are they in the right classes at the right ages?.

Adding to that she says, the report chose children at age 11, and 48 per cent of these children are in grade IV, however according to their ages they were supposed to be above grade IV. In 2011 children of the same grade stood at 33 percent. This means, as the years goes on children enrolment at the right age slows down, with the give scenario are we really following the education policy?

“We commend the government for their efforts to ensure children are mastering basic Kiswahili and for providing more children with textbooks. The declining rates of access to school could signal a fading of the initial enthusiasm over free primary education that produced a surge in enrolment,” says Mgalla.

She says that, the experience that followed the struggles with under resourced schools and classrooms, over stretched teachers and low quality learning outcomes led to declining rates of enrolments.

“Our common challenge is to ensure that this does not happen again. We will do this by checking our children books and homework every day, by paying close attention to how our schools are managed, and by focusing at least as much on improving the results that come from schooling as on the inputs that go into our schools,” she says.

At the launch, Antony Komu, Member of Parliament from Moshi rural says that, the findings by the report that shows 79 per cent of the pupils in rural Moshi children are fed order to help pupils stay at schools however he still thinks the fee free education has resulted to so many challenges in the education sector.

“How many teachers have been added to help the increase of the enrolment, and where are the desks for the pupils? In order to help our children learn in schools, we should consider employing new teachers and get enough desks for a start,” says Komu.

Fatma Toufiq, a Member of Parliament special seats says that, the findings remind legislators, parents and teachers on their roles to ensure children are learning.

She says that, parents should make a follow up on the children progress at the schools as majority leave the burden to the teachers as result the lack of enough teachers and lack of parents commitment leads to poor performances.

She recommends that the government should add more money in the education sector to help in purchasing of learning materials, take teachers for on job trainings. This will help teachers to get new skills that will help them teach with more passion.

“I also think if the text books ratios can move from 1 book for 3 pupils to 1 book for 1 pupil can help stimulate the level of understanding,” she adds.

The report shows that, the pupil to textbook ratio has seen rapid improvements moving from 30 pupils sharing a book in 2013, to 8 pupils sharing one book in 2014, down to 3 pupils sharing a book in 2015. These data clearly show the rate of change that is possible with strong and well-managed interventions.

Uwezo report provides strong indications that enrolments are declining, especially in rural areas. In 2011, 77% of pupils aged 7 were enrolled in primary school compared to 55% in 2015. When considering enrolment of the same age group in any educational institution (including pre-school), the figures have dropped from 86% in 2011 to 81% in 2015.

Further analysis shows that these declines are happening almost exclusively in rural areas: the enrolment among pupils aged 7, in any educational institution (including pre-school) dropped from 84% in 2011 to 78% in 2015. In urban areas the corresponding figures are 94% (2011) and 93% (2015). Similarly rural enrolment rates show declines among all age groups while urban enrolments have remained stable.

The report is based on data collected by Uwezo Tanzania which is part of Africa’s largest citizen-led assessment of learning outcomes implemented in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

In the sixth round of data collection by Uwezo Tanzania in 2015, a total of 197,451 children were assessed from 68,588 households. Data were also collected from 4,750 primary schools.