Education structure in Tanzania is provided by both the public and private sectors, starting with pre-primary education, followed by primary, secondary ordinary, secondary advanced, and ideally, university level education. Free and accessible education is a human right in Tanzania. The Tanzanian government began to emphasize the importance of education shortly after its independence in 1961. Curriculum is standardized by level, and it is the basis for the national examinations. Achievement levels are important, yet there are various causes of children not receiving the education that they need, including the need to help families with work, poor accessibility, and a variety of learning disabilities. While there is a lack of resources for special education, Tanzania has committed to inclusive education and attention on disadvantaged learners, as pointed out in the 2006 Education Sector Review AIDE-MEMORE. The government's National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty in 2005 heavily emphasized on education and literacy.
In 2016, the government introduced a fee free education policy for primary and secondary government schools.
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) finds that Tanzania is fulfilling only 57.0% of what it should be fulfilling for the right to education based on the country's level of income. HRMI breaks down the right to education by looking at the rights to both primary education and secondary education. While taking into consideration Tanzania's income level, the nation is achieving 79.0% of what should be possible based on its resources (income) for primary education but only 34.9% for secondary education.
History The Tanzanian government's commitment to education as an integral part of its social and economic development started shortly after independence. Before independence, educational access was very restricted. The Arusha Declaration was followed in 1967 by the policy document "Education for Self-Reliance", in which education was assigned a seminal role in the transformation of Tanzania to an African socialist society. Universal primary education (UPE) was emphasized in the Musoma Declaration of 1974 as a way of transforming rural society and agriculture, from which it was acknowledged the vast majority of the population would derive their livelihood.
By the early 1980s, external shocks (oil crises, low coffee prices, drought, and war between Tanzania and Uganda) and deficient economic policy caused an economic crisis that needed to be resolved through economic restructuring and recovery. Tanzania's relationship, however, with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was tense because of differing perspectives on the root causes of the economic crisis and how to handle it. Tanzanian policy makers attributed the crisis to exogenous shocks, while the World Bank and the IMF stressed deficient economic policies and institutions as the root cause. For the education sector, this period saw a huge reduction in resources that lead to a reversal of progress made towards UPE during the 1970s and declining quantity and quality at all levels of education.
Despite subsequent progress from the economic reform efforts of the late 1980s and 1990s, social indicators were stagnating, including progress towards UPE. In 1995, the Ministry of Education prepared an Education and Training Master Plan. This was updated and further elaborated in a new phase of government policy embodied in the Education Sector Development Program (ESDP) of 1997 (revised in 2001), a program formulated to run from 1998 to 2007 and to have large scale impact that would accelerate progress on stagnating education indicators. The government also committed to the goals listed in the World Declaration on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs,World Declaration on Education For All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs which was issued in Jomtien, Thailand in 2000."Project Performance Assessment Report: Tanzania", World Bank, Report No. 55383, 28 June 2010, page 3
Within the larger ESDP, the government, together with civil society stakeholders and donors, formulated a Primary Education Development Program (PEDP) that took effect 2 January 2002 and ran to 2009. The World Bank supported the PEDP with a US$150 million Sector Adjustment Credit in 2001, which was supplemented by a US$50 million contribution by the Netherlands. The objectives of the PEDP were to: (1) expand school access; (2)improve education quality; and (3) increase school retention at the primary level. These objectives would be achieved through improved resource allocation and utilization, improved educational inputs, and strengthened institutional arrangements for effective primary education delivery. The PEDP introduced, among other reforms, Capitation and Development Grants for direct disbursement to primary schools."Project Performance Assessment Report: Tanzania", World Bank, Report No. 55383, 28 June 2010, page xii
The government's National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (2005) had a focus on inclusive education as part of its second cluster that deals with social well being and quality of life. Teachers were encouraged to begin learning sign language and have special resources for "disadvantaged learners." Schools are beginning to focus on groups that have been traditionally excluded from education opportunities, regardless of physical, intellectual, social, or other condition within their environment.
Public versus private education system
Tanzania's school system is catered towards the wealthy. Less than 30 percent of students achieve secondary education, and the language barrier between primary and secondary education is much of the issue. The language of education for primary school is Kiswahili while the language of secondary school is English. Many children have no prior experience with English, and there is typically no free extra or private help available. The country has been considering whether to standardize the language of instruction for the whole educational system. Around 60 percent of all teachers are under qualified, there is a lack of incentive and instructional materials, and many of the public schools are located in extremely poor areas. Private primary schools are very few, and they are English medium and expensive. Private secondary schools are also costly, more so even, but they often have a higher demand because children who do not pass the Primary School Leaving Exam after Standard 7 exam cannot enroll in a government secondary school. Private schools have smaller class sizes and better resources but charge tuition of around TSh 1.5 to 2 million per year, which is not feasible for the majority of families. The government is attempting to standardize the delivery of education and lower costs.
Education sector national budget
For fiscal year 2011–12, which began 1 July 2011, the education sector national budget was TSH:2.283 trillion. In nominal terms, this was an 11.6 percent increase over the amount budgeted for fiscal year 2010–11. After accounting for inflation, however, the increase was approximately 1 percent.
Based on actual performance in recent fiscal years, the amount budgeted for the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training is typically much more than the amount spent. In fiscal year 2008–09, the ministry spent TSh 85.1 billion out of the TSh 128.5 billion budgeted. The gap between budgeted and spent has increased since then. In fiscal year 2010–11, the ministry spent only TSh 76.8 billion out of the TSh 139.7 billion budgeted.
A total of TSh 155.1 billion was spent in the last three years. This amount could be sufficient to build 3,875 houses for teachers according to the estimated costs of building one house at TSh 40 million as outlined by ... [phase 2 of the Secondary Education Development Program]. By building these houses we could have reduced the problem of teachers lacking accommodation, especially for schools situated in remote rural villages.
The education sector was budgeted to consume 20 percent of the national budget in fiscal year 2008–09. That share decreased to 17 percent in fiscal year 2011–12.
Funds budgeted in fiscal year 2011-12 for development, such as constructing buildings and teachers' houses, consumedonly 10.2 percent of the total amount budgeted for the education sector. This compared to 20-24 percent in Uganda and 14-15 percent in Kenya.
Pre-primary education In the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Tanzania ratified in 1991, there are two arguments that emphasize the importance of Early Childhood Education. It argues that it should be a basic right for all young children and that it yields high economic returns for a nation's development. Tanzania was one of the first African countries to ratify this policy as well as a number of others such as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. While they are progressive and see pre-primary education as a basic right, it is not mandatory and is up to parents whether or not their child attends before the age of five. There is low public awareness about the importance of early education, especially in rural communities. It is accessible to about 40% of pre-primary aged children, and the government is not currently making strides to increase this. About 8.6% of teachers in pre-primary education are professionally qualified, and nutrition, physical health, and mental health, are not priorities of the system. The curriculum focuses on teachers delivering curriculum in numeracy and literacy, with little room for feedback, questions, or more 'creative learning' such as storytelling, art, or peer interaction.
Primary education
Enrollment and teaching statistics The Arusha Declaration in 1967 provided for Tanzania to adopt a community-based learning education system, where each area, regardless of its wealth or urban or rural character, assesses its own needs and makes appropriate policies to meet them. Primary education is compulsory and free, except for school supplies. and taught in Kiswahili if through the public system. As mentioned, private primary education is English medium and much more expensive.
In 2014, about 8,247,000 children in Tanzania were enrolled in primary education, which is about 80 percent of total pupils above age 7 and up to age 18. In 2023, 93.07% of all children of primary school age were enrolled in primary education. This was an increase by 8.4% percent in 2020/21 compared to 2014/15. As enrollment increased with accessibility, educational quality decreased. The number of classrooms were too low, especially in rural areas, often causing 100-200 students to be in one classroom, and at ten government schools, there was only one teacher to teach them. Teacher to student ratio was, on average, 1:50.63, and primary school completion rate in 2023 was 86.23. There were 99.20% trained teachers in primary education.
Standard primary curriculum
The Tanzania Institute of Education is the main body responsible for developing the curriculum. It prepares programs, syllabi, and pedagogical materials such as handbooks and laboratory manuals. It also specifies standards for educational materials, trains teachers in curriculum innovations, monitors curriculum implementation in schools, and evaluates and approves manuscripts intended for school use.