JOINT EDUCATION SECTOR REVIEW
PERFORMANCE OF CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS (CSOS) IN DELIVERY OF QUALITY EDUCATION IN TANZANIA
Dar es Salaam
September, 2010
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY iii
1.0 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Objectives 1
1.2 Methodology 1
1.3 Roles of CSOs in general perspective 1
1.4 Roles of CSOs in the context of quality education delivery 2
2.0 CONTRIBUTIONS OF CSO’S IN DELIVERY OF QUALITY EDUCATION 3
2.1 Contributions of CSO’s at the policy level 3
2.1.1 Policy Dialogues 4
2.1.2 Policy interpretation 5
2.1.3 Media/ public engagement 5
2.1.4 Campaigns, lobbying and advocacy 6
2.1.5 Innovations 6
2.2 Contributions of CSO’s in education policy practice. 9
2.2.1 Pre and Primary education; 10
2.2.2 Secondary Education 10
2.2.3 Teacher Education 11
2.1.4 Adult and Non- formal Education 12
2.1.5 Inclusive Education 13
3.0 CROSS CUTTING ISSUES 14
3.1 Gender. 14
3.2 TUSEME Programme (Let us Speak Out).. 14
3.3 School learning environment; WASH initiatives. 15
3.4 HIV/ AIDS Prevention and Information 16
4.0 ACHIEVEMENTS OF TENMET 16
5.0 CHALLENGES 18
6.0 CONCLUSION 19
7.0 RECOMMENDATIONS 19
8.0 THE TASK FORCE FOR DEVELOPING THE PAPER 20
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AIDSCAMFED / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
Campaign For Female Education
CDTFN
CSOs
BEDF / Childhood Development Trust Fund Network
Civil Society Organizations
Basic Education Development Fund
ECD
EFA
ESDP
FAWE
GWA
HIV / Early Child Development
Education For All
Education Sector Development Programme
Foundation for African Women Education
Global Week of Action
Human Immunodeficiency Virus
MDGs
MCDGC / Millennium Development Goals
Ministry of Community Development, Gender and Children
MoEVT / Ministry of Education and Vocational Training
MOHSW / Ministry of Health & Social Welfare
PMO-RALG
SAWA / Prime Ministers Office – Regional and Local Government
Safina Women Association
SNV / Netherlands Development Organisation
SWASH
TECDEN
TEN/MET
TRCs
TRCC / School WASH
Tanzania Early Child Development Network
Tanzania Education Network/Mtandao wa Elimu Tanzania
Teacher Resource Centres
Teachers Resource Centre Coalition
UNICEF / United Nations Children’s Fund
USAID / United States of America International Aid Department
WASH / Water, Sanitation & Hygiene
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
With the expanding space for civil society organizations (CSOs), Annual Education Sector Reviews provide an opportunity for all key stakeholders to access and contribute to the development of education. TEN/MET acknowledges that noticeable progress in education development in Tanzania. However, more is desired to be done to meet Education for All (EFA) goals and the Millennium development Goals (MDGs), let alone Tanzania Development Vision 2025 and MKUKUTA goals and targets.
This years CSOs position paper discusses on performance of civil society organizations (CSOs) in delivery of quality education in Tanzania. The paper provides a detailed analysis of CSOs performance in different activities to enhance quality education delivery, the achievement, challenges and recommendations.
Performance of CSOs in promoting quality education delivery in Tanzania has been very diverse but around policy analysis and practice. It has been noted that CSOs performance under TEN/MET coordination has been growing (currently there are more than 300 CSOs members). The CSOs have proved to participate in tripartite forums and networks, which is strength for having a common voice on education development issues. Partnerships and joint efforts activities performance among related CSOs members have also proved to strengthen performance in quality education delivery in Tanzania. CSOs joint interventions in education related issues are also growing and have brought positive impacts especially on identification of joint strategies for sharing education development inputs to the government. Strengthened CSOs participation in dialogues and debate has also been instrumental for the government to broaden strategies for addressing challenges on improved quality education delivery.
Regardless the observed strengths of CSOs performance in quality education delivery, there are still some challenges that need attention. These include the need for strengthened working mechanism between the government and the CSOs as well as improved feedback system for efficient flow of information from different education dialogues. Having understood the strength and challenges on delivering quality education in Tanzania, CSOs are coming up with the following recommendation;
· The government with partners should work out an arrangement to solicit other sources of funding to ensure that education budget does not fall below 20% if quality education is to be realized
· The quest for good quality of education should start with the strengthening the quality of teachers, through careful selection of candidate followed by appropriate pre and regular in-service training.
· The funding at all levels should have and clearly show implementation of inclusive education.
· There should be a clear policy to guide managing and running of ECD centres. MoEVT should be in charge of ECD and that there is a curriculum to ensure children are prepared for upper levels of learning.
· Government should participate effectively on providing trained HIV/AIDS teachers as it is in other education curricular. Resources and guidelines on teaching HIV/AIDS to be made available to all schools especially those in the remote areas.
· The government should take deliberate efforts to address school WASH interventions by providing enough budget support to local government authorities.
· Government to strengthen the inspectorate departments at LGAs for having immediate and effective education results based M&E at local level.
· Need to harmonize NECTA and TIE mandates in curricular and examinations management particularly in examination assessments to accommodate competent based curricula initiatives.
· The Government to put more emphasis on Adult education interventions to motivate effective community participation in children learning especially those with special needs.
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
This paper provides a detailed analysis on CSOs performance in different activities to enhance quality education delivery; the achievements, challenges and recommendations. The analysis is divided into six sections. First is the introduction explaining objective for having this position paper on performance of CSOs in delivery of quality education in Tanzania as well as the roles that CSOs play in this regard. Following the introduction, section two elaborates in detail SCOs contributions towards quality education delivery. Section three analyses achievements of TEN/MET as a coalition for education SCOs. Challenges encountered by the SCOs in the course off facilitating the delivery of quality education in Tanzania are discussed in section four. Section five is on conclusion, putting together key issues and experiences of SCOs in their interventions to enhance quality education delivery. The last section provides recommendations which SCOs found them useful to be observed for future improvement of quality education delivery and Education Sector Development Reform in general.
1.1 Objectives
Main objective of this paper is to share CSO performance in delivery of quality education in Tanzania. The sharing includes the roles, achievement, challenges and recommendations in regards to policy analysis and practices in quality education delivery interventions.
1.2 Methodology
The techniques used to collect the information for writing this paper included: consultative meetings with some of the members based in Dar es Salaam, contributions from members outside Dar es Salaam were solicited through emails, postal services and telephone calls. Literature review on the theme also contributed in sharpening the focus of the paper.
1.3 Roles of CSOs in general perspective
Historically, the role of CSOs in Tanzania has evolved through two main phases:
i) A service delivery phase (from the pre-independence era to early 1990s) during which CSO work focused on charities, self-help initiatives and working through government-set systems; faith based organizations (FBOs) established and ran schools and they continue to do so to-date.
ii) A shift from service delivery to largely influencing policies and advocating for change (since late 1990s to-date). However, currently some CSOs are reverting to service delivery because there is a rising demand towards that support.
In these phases Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) continued to have roles to provide advice, critique and complement the government efforts on education policies implementation. This calls for civil society organisations to have a consistent, principled and committed stand in the interest of the large masses and for human values and causes. Thus regardless CSOs being formed with different specific objectives, they strive to have broad-based membership to acquire more legitimacy on supporting people’s effort in education development. Additionally CSOs have been putting more efforts to organise themselves into networks and coalitions at local, district and national levels with common objectives.
1.4 Roles of CSOs in the context of quality education delivery
CSOs performance in quality education delivery is seen in two levels, first is participation in policy analysis and secondly is the practical interventions to the policies. In policy analysis, CSOs have mainly played part in the review of MKUKUTA II, PEDP and SEDP. Here there are concrete examples like;
· Effectively Participating in planning, implementing and monitoring of PEDP and SEDP activities at all levels
· Constructive contributions to the joint annual ESDP reviews and in TWGs
· Sharing experience and knowledge to the improvement and provision of education through MKUKUTA II review.
· Facilitating meaningful community participation in education development interventions at local level
· Collecting and disseminating educational information from and to schools, communities, government and other stakeholders
· Initiating and participating in dialogue debates at local and national levels.
· Conducting education policy analysis and advocacy through research.
· CSOs at different competencies also continued to collaborate with MoEVT in achieving national targets in SEDP
· CSOs also participated actively in large scale activities like education PETS commissioned by the government.
· Through TEN/MET coalition CSOs have been providing capacity building interventions for example TEN/MET supported TTU to develop their Teachers’ professional board bill which is in its final stages to be passed on by the parliament.
· The CSOs have been also very instrumental on reviewing and developing the Education and Training Policy (ETP).
In implementing the policies practically CSOs have been involved in service delivery national wide to complement communities and government efforts like; construction of classrooms, teachers houses, provision of teaching and learning materials, WASH facilities, supporting Teachers Resource Centres (TRCs), provision of computers to schools and other IT gadgets including special learning materials (Brail printer and type writers for the blind school in Shinyanga) and construction of school libraries.
In these interventions CSOs have proved to be more successful in reaching the marginalised and excluded groups through appropriate community participation approaches. Additionally the CSOs have proved to be active on learning and understanding local cultures which has been strength on utilization of local environment to improve community schools, reproductive health and early childhood development. CSOs have also introduced innovations as source of new thinking and practices that has helped to fill the ‘ideas gap’ in educational development interventions.
2.0 CONTRIBUTIONS OF CSO’S IN DELIVERY OF QUALITY EDUCATION
2.1 Contributions of CSO’s at the policy level
The contribution of CSOs at the policy level focuses at policy analysis and interpretation; CSOs performance in Media/public engagement, campaigns, lobbying and advocacy, innovations, capacity building on governance and solar radio project. Assessment on how these interventions have an impact in quality of education delivery is another key issue of discussion in this regard.
2.1.1 Policy Dialogues
The CSOs have been actively contributing in education policy and programs analyses for the intention of influencing the necessary education policy reforms.
For example, CSOs under TEN/MET coordination have strengthened the Re-entry policy dialogue with the government and other development partners. Currently the Re-entry policy is about to be passed as a law to allow pregnant girls and young mothers to resume schooling.
AMANI has historically played a leading role in advocating for the inclusion of Early Childhood Development (ECD) in Tanzania’s education development agenda. In 2004, on behalf of Tanzania ECD Network (TECDEN), AMANI led the facilitation of CSO participation in a consultative process that led to the inclusion of ECD in MKUKUTA I. According to Vargas-Baron (2004) analysis commissioned by, AMANI, it was established that 40% of the MKUKUTA outcomes are linked to ECD. In this regards it was sense for the government to reconsider putting enough attention on improving ECD in MKUKUTA components to insist that ECD as the preliminary stage of a child literacy development need full national support.
Towards the end of the 2009 the government assigned Policy Forum to lead CSOs participation in the development of MKUKUTA II. Again the CSOs lobbying efforts focused on the aspects of ECD inclusion by developing indicators to track progress of ECD in MKUKUTA II. In May 2010, AMANI jointly with TENMET secretariat engaged CSOs members in a thematic consultation to inform them on the content and direction of MKUKUTA II draft. The participants also participated on reviewing MKUKUTA cluster 2 goals 1 and 2 which take care of education issues. CSOs inputs in this regards focused on unpacking all the ECD and basic education gaps featured in Cluster 2 goals 1 and 2.
Furthermore, TENMET as a coalition has appointed its members to participate in the following dialogue task forces; ESDC Task Force, PETS Task Force, GBS Cluster 2 Working Group, Joint Education Sector Technical Working Group (JESTWG), RACEF, Enrolment Expansion, Institutional Arrangements, Quality Improvement, Monitoring and Evaluation, Cross-cutting Issues, EMIS Subcommittee, AE/NFE Subcommittee, Tertiary and Higher Education Technical Task Team. CSOs with the coordination of TEN/MET also played an active role in facilitating the education PETS processes that influenced the government to review education expenditure guidelines specifically with the education capitation grants. CSOs reviews on MKUKUTA II and the school re- entry in the ETP policy have contributed to greater extent the sharpening of these documents.
2.1.2 Policy interpretation
In order to influence changes in quality education management, TENMET through its members has supported actual education service delivery to the community. Examples include HakiElimu’s supply of computers to school pupils with visual handicaps as well as solar powered radios were supplied to primary schools across the country. Oxfam GB has also done the following among others; Provision of materials, training and equipment for school libraries and Teacher Resource Centres also provided computer-training course to staff from three District of Shinyanga. Other activities included assorting textbooks and professional development materials to these Teacher Resource Centers as well as renovating and furnishing 27 school libraries. Currently the school libraries and Teachers Resources Centers in Shinyanga have adequate books and learning materials including science kits and maps. These centres have stated to cultivate a reading culture in both the pupils and the teachers.