Education in 2022 and the way forward

Dar es Salaam. One of the issues that stood out in the education sector in 2022 was the process of gathering opinions for improving the 2014 Education and Training policy and curriculum.

But now that the data has been gathered, there is a chance for study before the new policy is enacted the following year.

However, 2022 has been a year that has brought up additional concerns over the subpar infrastructures in schools.

Stakeholders assert that the government still has a duty to enhance the learning environment if it is to accomplish the aim of ‘leaving no one behind’, even if the final draft of the education policy review is anticipated to be released in 2023.

Cancellation of fees

Students from Grade One to Form Four (O-Level) began studying without paying fees in 2016. The change happened as a result of Education Circular No. 5 of 2015, which the government released and in which it scrapped the O-Level fees for public schools.

This year, the government again attained another milestone as it has brought in a sigh of relief to parents who have been struggling to pay fees for their children joining Advanced Secondary Education (Form Five and Six).

Many people, notably parents of children attending public schools, were impressed by the move since it became one of the significant educational turning points.

On June 14, this year, the minister for Finance and Planning, Dr Mwigulu Nchemba, while presenting the estimated income and expenditure of the government budget for the 2022/23 financial year, proposed cancelling the fees to lower the expense to parents.

Dr Nchemba explained that this year’s (2022/23) Form Five students were approximately 90,825 and Form Six were 56,880, and the financial requirement was Sh10.3 billion, so the government intended to reduce the burden on parents by scrapping the fees.

“I propose to cancel fees for students of form V and VI. In this regard, education becomes free from primary schools to advanced secondary schools,” said Dr Nchemba.

This step was received positively by various stakeholders, with the lecturer from the University of Dodoma, Mr Christian Bwaya, saying that it was important to enable parents with difficult economic conditions to be able to send their children up to Form Six.

“Many children from poor backgrounds have had the chance to attend public schools and receive an education; A lack of fees in the past caused a lot of students to leave school,” he said.

Dr Mussa Jabu, a retired Mzumbe University lecturer, said   for many years, parents of impoverished students were compelled to sell valuable assets like land in order to pay fees, placing their own family at danger of further poverty.

“President Hassan’s administration deserves praise for the ground-breaking choice, which benefits families by removing the necessity for them to sell property, among other things. However, the government should make sure that the expansion of infrastructure, including buildings, desks, and books, keeps pace with the growth in the number of learners,” he said.

However, Mr Ochola Wayoga, the national coordinator for the Tanzania Education Network (TEN/MET), claims that the government’s decision to waive the Form Five and Six cost was improper given the small number of beneficiaries.

“Removing fees is only one aspect of what the government should do; it is incorrect to view the problem of fees as a major one. The government should prioritise improving the education sector,” he said.

According to Mr Wayoga, the government should pay close attention to ways to enhance the working conditions for teachers and the profession itself. He also suggested that the sort of people who are going to enter the teaching profession be reviewed.

Still many requirements

The increase of students brought on by the free education policy presented a problem. Due to an imbalanced teacher-to-pupil ratio in the classrooms and insufficient funding, the number of pupils increased far more quickly than the infrastructure of the schools.

While it is wonderful that more and more children have access to education, the nation has been compelled to build suitable infrastructure as a result of long-standing classroom shortages, which occasionally required children to enter Form One in batches.

However, because more classes were created using some of the Covid-19 rescue money obtained from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), all 907,803 pupils who completed the primary school exams last year began secondary school in January. However, there are still requests for the government to improve primary  education, which is still mostly in terrible situation, particularly in the rural areas.

Last year, the Tanzanian government received an emergency loan from the IMF of $567 million last year to cover the financial and social expenses of the epidemic, with a portion of that amount going toward the construction of 15,000 classrooms in secondary schools..

One of the significant steps was the use of Covid-19 funds to construct classrooms for students, which education stakeholders describe as a brave move by President Hassan and which allayed the concerns of parents that their children would not have the opportunity to attend secondary school.

However, stakeholders advise that the problem of inadequate school infrastructure be examined broadly beginning in 2023.

“Even though all pupils were able to start Form One simultaneously this year (2022). Tanzania must make significant investments across the board in order to fulfil its pledges to the education sector,” Dr Thomas Jabir, an education expert based in Dar es Salaam, told The Citizen in an interview recently.

Currently, he argues that Tanzania has fallen short of its domestic and international commitments due to insufficient support for the nation’s educational system.

The international framework demands investment of at least 20 percent of the National Budget or five to six percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to be spent on the education sector annually.

Similar to this, the Education Sector Development Plan (ESDP) II and III placed a strong emphasis on developing infrastructure, human resources and student enrollment.

However, Tanzania’s allotted education budget during the past five years has fallen well short of the requirements set forth in the international framework and the ESDP.

According to HakiElimu, a local education watchdog, the ministry of Education, Science and Technology’s Sh5.635 trillion for the 2022/23 Financial Year is too small to cater for the needs of the sector.

They break down the institutions and the funding for education in the nation into three categories: the Ministry (Sh1.493 trillion, or 26.5 percent); the Regional Administrative Secretaries (Sh4.042 trillion, or 71.7 percent); and the President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG) (Sh82.3-1.5 percent).

Others are the Teachers Services Commission (Sh15 billion, or 0.26 percent) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)  (Sh2.7 billion or 0.04 percent).
“When compared to the Sh41.1 trillion National Budget for 2022/23 Financial Year, the amount allocated for the education sector is equivalent to 13.7 percent of the National Budget,” said HakiElimu policy analyst programme manager, Mr Makumba Mwemezi.

According to Dr. Jabir, new financial sources for enhancing the educational infrastructure should be explored in cooperation between the public and private sectors if the government’s noble objectives to bring about changes in this area are to be effective.

“Although we have all seen the excellent intentions of this administration for our education, there is still a great need for investment since more and more children are enrolling in schools and require desks, classrooms, learning materials, and many other things that the government has not yet rectified,” he said. Discussing the paucity of funding in the education sector, Mr. Wayoga noted that by 2025, there will be 28.5 million students enrolled in schools or 43.7percent of the population and that it is crucial to establish long-term strategies to support those pupils.