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Education quality: Are we on track?
2007-07-02 08:47:57
By Rayner Ngonji
A standard seven finalist in one of Dar es Salaam`s primary schools, who is expected to sit for his examination later this year, was heard telling his fellow pupils when responding to a question in a live radio broadcast programme, that the capital of Mali is Italy.
I was flabbergasted at the response. I could hardly believe my ears.
I started contemplating as to whether the pupil was really serious when answering the question.
I posed the question to some of standard six pupils.
It was even worse. They didn`t even know what I was talking about.
Some asked me what Mali was and where it was located.
Others said they had never been taught a thing on that score.
The question of declining quality of education in Tanzania is no longer debatable.
The prevailing situation in our country’s schools attest to this fact.
Some secondary school leavers, both at ordinary and advanced levels, for example, are unable to write a simple letter seeking employment even in Kiswahili.
The ability of school leavers some 25 or 30 years ago was diametrically at variance with this situation.
As regards today, the pupil lacks not only seriousness during his studies, but also casts doubts over the ability of his teachers.
Massive failures in Form IV National Examinations fully attest to the declining educational standard.
A total of 15,625 or close to a quarter of 58,061 students who sat for the examination in one year failed, making it the worst results ever.
Examination leakage in recent years has somehow been put under control such that there is no room for cheating.
An official with the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training said recently in an interview that the massive failures truly reflect the performance level in our secondary schools.
`The massive failures indicate that past results in similar examinations were due to cheating,` he said, adding that some of the schools which always perform well do not live up to the standard.
In November 1998 the government nullified the National Form IV Examination which was then underway because of widespread leakages.
It then ordered that the examination be composed afresh and respective candidates sit for them the following January.
These changes took by surprise students who were prone to obtaining examination papers prior to the examination dates, hence the larger bracket of failures.
The teachers are partly to blame for this state of affairs, but they too have their problems that have put them off the commitment track.
Their salaries are low. That apart, the salaries are not paid promptly and for which some teachers have to travel 50 kilometres or more to get them.
Yet, the salaries might not even be there upon their arrival.
Of late there have been reports that the delay in teachers` salaries has been solved and that the issue had thus been dealt with accordingly.
However, on the ground things are still far from having been eliminated.
The Kasulu Teachers College in Kigoma some years back recorded very peculiar results.
Out of 91 candidates who sat for the final examinations only 17 passed while 34 failed and 40 absconded.
Shortage of learning materials, particularly in rural areas appears to have been over-looked by analysts.
In a situation where a pupil sits on a bare floor, it is obviously difficult to concentrate.
That is so because biologically, sitting on the floor doesn`t allow blood to flow freely.
Yet, one university academic comes up saying Tanzania’s education system is not on the verge of collapse.
He is claiming that our students are performing well in higher learning institutions outside the country.
Whether that really holds water to our key issue of declining education quality, is subject to discussion.
The learned professor appears to have applied politics in his arguments.
He might have taken that stand for reasons better known to him. However, his submission merely contradicts what the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training officials have admitted openly - that there are weaknesses in the entire educational system.
Professor Issa Omari holds that many of the products of local public and private schools are internationally competitive.
But he didn`t tell us how many are there or how good is that country`s education system where they are said to be excelling.
If you take any one to the former Eastern Bloc countries, regardless of whether one performed well or poorly he or she was certain to do well there.
Nevertheless, this doesn`t keep us away from the core problem of declining quality.
His argument is based on reports not on the actual situation on the field.
For example, he says the enrolment percentage is 76 per cent particularly in primary schools whereas in fact it is not like that.
In fact the literacy level has now gone down from around 90 per cent in the early 1970s. Doesn`t that indicate a management weakness?
Universal Primary Education (UPE) launched in 1974 is considered to be one of the causes of the declining educational standard in the country for its massive enrolment of pupils with no teaching materials and recruiting ex-Standard Seven school failures as trainee teachers.
Yet, the professor is saying UPE succeeded magnificently with primary school enrolment over 90 per cent, though now it has regress to 76 per cent.
We can defend our system under whatever guise, but our education will continue to decline at an alarming rate under prevailing conditions.
The best way for improving the situation is perhaps by adhering to a proposal of examining all university entrants afresh to establish if they really have proper qualifications for tertiary education.
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