Education in Tanzania: Quantity or Quality?

 
These days and in this end of the world we count in quantity and not quality - when it comes to Africa and the Millenium Development Goals.

For the past months I have been working with engaging Danish civil society organisations in development cooperation in a Danish campaign, which directly translated is called 'The World's Best News'.  In brief, the campaign is aiming at informing the Danes about the progress made in developing countries, not just in terms of 'our' support, but in general. The overall message is that it makes a difference to support development, and that we have a responsibility to do so. So far, a very successful campaign, the largest of its kind in Denmark, which amongst others have generated a lot of activities in the Danish civil society, but also managed to make us focus on progress.

However, it also means that the Danish prime minister has learnt his lines well, when he from the Millenium Development Goal Summit in New York the day before yesterday underlined the success of the Danish achievement in development support: 'Now, 9 out of 10 children are in school', meaning we are close to reaching the second Millenium Development Goal: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

All fine on a global level. However, coming almost straight out of Tanzania I had one clear problem with oversimplifying the question of education when it comes to East Africa. I have visited too many schools around Tanzania, Uganda and Tanzania for the past 5 years, not to ask the question: Haya, so what do the 9 out of 10 children actually learn there...? Last year in November I wrote this blog post from Longido in northern Tanzania. The schools are there, even in the most remote parts of Tanzania, but they are crowded with children, who walk far every day; and have teachers with insufficient resources.

However, Uwezo, which is part of Twaweza, on September 21 launched interesting findings in its Annual Learning Assessment Report Tanzania 2010. The study assessed literacy and numeracy skills of over 40,000 children in over 20,000 households - the largest survey of its kind: Are Our Children Learning? 

The key findings say:

One in five primary school leavers cannot read Standard 2 level Kiswahili
Half the children who complete primary school cannot read in English
Only 7 in 10 primary school leavers can do Standard 2 level Mathematics
Urban based children perform better than rural based children
Girls do slightly better than boys
Children with educated mothers perform better

  
Basically the Twaweza went into details, focusing on quality and on the outputs. 

And it doesn't look good comparing to the fact that Tanzania is actually one of the countries in Africa, the Danish politicians in general like to draw upon when giving good examples.

The conclusion appears positive in donor countries when counting the amount of children in school, but rather sad when you take a close look in Tanzania. Tanzania might have come far in terms of putting its children to school - on a quantitive level, but qualitatively there is something utterly wrong. 

Other bloggers picked up on the survey. Swahili Street noted that 'It is a sensitive time for them (Twaweza) to do this'. And it made The Mikocheni Report suggest reflection here.

I'll finish off with the same words I used last year in Longido:

'...it all boils down to utilised and appreciated human potential, creativity, personal drive, eagerness and motivation, which will be the only forces change is made of.'

Talking about progress and change in terms of quantity is one thing, but says close to nothing about the quality of what we want for the children in Tanzania. Do we want full schools, or do we want to work with the fantastically, massive amount of human potential which is the ultimate feed for the change a country like Tanzania need?

Now that we are this close to having 9 out of 10 in school, it might be time to focus on quality?

I think Twaweza has done an excellent job pointing this out, and if you are a blogger, journalist or communication officer in an international NGO, I believe this is a really useful tool to pass forward or use in further argumentation. 

Download the full survey here.