A Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PE

This report was written in the wake of one of the greatest catastrophes in the recent history of Tanzanian education. Half of all Form 4 students failed the 2010 national examination. Despite sitting through four years of secondary education, 174,193 of the 352,840 students who took the exam either failed in every subject or got a single ―D‖ out of the seven subjects tested and failed the rest (NECTA, 2011). Formal education for these 174,193 members of the next generation leading Tanzania has, for the most part, come to an end. Parents are confused, and the nation is shocked. The country is left wondering, ―What has caused this?‖ and, ―What urgent action needs to be taken?‖ While no one could predict such a sharp decline in our secondary school students‘ performance, many of us in the education sector at the national level saw the symptoms. There has been a quick and steady decline in exam performance over the past few years. The implementation of the nationwide government initiative called the Secondary Education Development Plan (SEDP), has emphasized enrollment—building enough schools to provide enough classrooms for the nation‘s youth to attend secondary school. This has been achieved—the number of government secondary schools has more than quadrupled from 828 in 2004 to the current 3,425, and the number of students enrolled in them has increased from 264,888 in 2004 to 1,515,671 today (URT, 2008b, 2011a). However, the government has not been able to match the pace of this enrollment with the required educational inputs. While the amount of students has increased more than five-fold, the number of teachers in government secondary schools has only managed to quadruple from 9,896 in 2004 to 39,934 now (URT ,2008b, 2011a). To cope with the shortage of teachers, many secondary schools, particularly rural community secondary schools, hire or receive teachers without qualifications to teach in secondary schools. Currently, one out of every thirteen teachers in secondary schools, two are unqualified to teach there (URT, 2011a). On top of this, adequate textbooks, learning materials, and laboratories remain a problem. When children are in secondary school being taught by unqualified teachers with too few learning materials, how can it be a surprise when they fail the national exams?

For the past two decades, parents, the Government, the private sector and civil society organisations have been complaining over the decline in the quality of education in Tanzania.  ere are two criteria that are used to measure the quality of education. Firstly, scholars analyse student pass rates on basic skills such as literacy, and numeracy (addition and subtraction). Secondly, scholars also analyse the students’ ability to secure employment and use the knowledge they got from school to cope with exiting challenges. It is these theories that guide many individuals’ expectations when they enroll their children in school. However, what underlies the provision of quality education is the quality of the curriculum as well as the quality of means, strategies and methdologies to implement the curriculum. If the curriculum is poor, the quality of education being provided shall also be poor. Even the teachers who implement the curriculum will € nd it hard to translate it into the reality on the ground so as to live up to the expectations of the people. It was the desire to understand the state of the curriculum in Tanzania and its relation to provision of quality education that drove HakiElimu to undertake a major research on the relationship between the quality of the curriculum and provision of quality education in 2010.

Ushirikishaji Jamii ni jambo muhimu sana katika kufanikisha shughuli za maendeleo. Ushiriki na ushirikishaji jamii unapaswa kuwa katika hatua zote za maendeleo ya mradi, yaani kuanzia kwenye kubuni mradi, kupanga gharama na shughuli nzima ya utekelezaji wa mradi ikiwa ni pamoja na ufuatiliaji na tathimini ya mradi huo. Miradi mingi ikiwemo ya elimu haifanikiwi kwa sababu tu ya kuwatenga na kutowashirikisha wananchi katika mchakato mzima wa maamuzi ya uanzishaji, utekelezaji, ufuatiliaji na tathmini ya miradi husika. Lengo la kitabu hiki ni kufikisha ujumbe kwa makundi mbalimbali ya kijamii, wakiwemo viongozi kuhusu umu-himu wa kuwashirikisha wananchi katika michakato muhimu ya maamuzi kwa ajili ya maendeleo ya jamii. Kwa upande mwingine, kitabu hiki kinalenga pia kuwakumbusha wananchi juu ya umuhimu wao kujihusisha na mambo ya msingi ambayo serikali au viongozi wao wanawaletea, iwe mitaani au vijijini mwao. Kwa bahati mbaya wengi wao hawashiriki kikamilifu hata pale fursa zinapopatikana kwa kusingizia kuwa na majukumu mengine hivyo kushindwa kushiriki katika miradi ya jamii ikiwemo ya shule. Aghalabu hushindwa hata ku-washinikiza viongozi wao kuwashirikisha au kutekeleza miradi yao kwa mujibu wa mipango mikakati. Matokeo yake ni kudumaa kwa miradi hiyo na maendeleo kwa jumla.

Hii ni ripoti ya utafiti uliyofanyika na HakiElimu na Mpango wa Utafiti ya Elimu na Demokrasia ya Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam kuhusu upatikanaji wa habari Tanzania.

The Government in Tanzania has adopted the National Strategy for Inclusive Education as one of her basic mechanisms for providing of quality Education for All (EFA). Inclusive education is an approach that looks into how to transform education systems and other learning environments in order to respond to the diversity of learners. The present study aimed at exploring the learning and participation of visually impaired learners in inclusive schools in Tanzania. Specifically, the study focused on how the learning environment and materials affect children with visual challenges in inclusive schools, teachers’ facilitation of learning for visually impaired learners in inclusive classrooms and examining if Visually Impaired learners are learning required skills at their level of education. The study also looked into performance of Visually Impaired learners in the national examinations and the extent to which Visually Impaired learners socially interact with peers and their teachers; and participate in the teaching and learning process.