The Schools Project
I was able to meet with Justin Morgan, the Assistant Country Director for Oxfam Tanzania. Oxfam is a worldwide development organization that works in various facets of poverty alleviation, including educational development programs. I had the opportunity to talk about the state of educational development in the country of Tanzania, as well as Oxfam's programs in the country that are working to raise both the quality of teachers and the overall rate of literacy in the East African nation. We discussed some very interesting themes in terms of the rural/urban educational divide in the country, the regional implications for their work, as well as broader themes in long-term educational planning and policy change at the national level. Here is a quick video clip that details some of their work in the country with teacher training.
Could you give me a quick background of the education programs you are supporting here in Tanzania? What is the ultimate goal of your work here in the country?
Sure. Our education program is currently focused on teacher training initiatives-doing, including performing actual teacher trainings such as in service training for teachers here in Tanzania. The focus is around child centered learning, having the children become the focus of the activity in the classroom, as opposed to the traditional lecture-focused model of teaching. The goals of this kind of training are increased student engagement and student-based solution and problem solving, which works to build critical thinking. This initiative has been building in success and momentum. However, there is a huge difference in terms of rural and urban areas in the success of our initiatives. If the children are second generation educated, the parents play a far more active role and are more pushy in getting better quality education, which is typically more the case in the urban, more developed areas of the country. In these urban areas, there is a lot more demand for quality from the parents. In the rural areas, the parents are just not as vocal in support. In rural settings, a minimum of 2 teachers per school are trained at the time in our teacher training programs. If they pull out these 2 teachers, this might be half the teachers in a small school, and thus, the chances for true sustainability and future skills transfers to the other teachers is minimized. In urban settings, there are many more teachers, and there is more pressure from the other teachers when some are taken out for training to bring back the information learned to the school; they are more likely to perform as a result.. There is simply more pressure to change at the urban setting than the rural setting.
What are the trends in the country in terms of educational progress on the macro level?
In the last 5-6 years, the educational system has been politicized a lot, which has brought an increasing pressure to perform statistically for the donor countries and agencies. There has been huge shifts in pass rates lately, which have gone up dramatically. What the teacher pass rates are and what is really going on in the education sector are two different things. The pass rates are hugely inflated. The reality is much more grim.
What can be done about this? Who are your trainers and what is their level of training?
The teacher trainers are recent graduates from teacher schools, who have completed a full service of training, which is two years, as opposed to the government's 6 months of training which has been the norm. In the program, there are teacher mentors as well, who are experienced teachers, who also form their own networks within the community. The teacher trainers are facilitated in their work through teacher resource centers that we have set up, where they have teacher aids, and teacher materials on all areas. This especially motivates new teachers, as those new teachers who are placed in the rural areas and who want to continue their studies, and self-improve, are able to do this. This just raises the level of morale. This is incentivizing the postings in the rural areas. Teachers are not highly respected here in general; in the rural setting, they are respected more so, as they are generally literate, which could be a rarity in rural communities.
What other programs are you running in the education sector in Tanzania?
The second big focus of our programs is in getting parents, communities and the students engaged in the education system. Again, there is a huge difference in engagement in the rural and urban areas. The quality of the implementation of these paradigm shifts are hard to gauge. In general, the urban partners, the urban parents and community members who we work with in engagement are more motivated and are more proactive in their work with us. There are a higher caliber of staff in the urban areas, and do a better job overall. The rural partners are not nearly as effective in becoming truly engaged in the educational process and creating a platform for change in this focus.
The last part of the work is advocacy. We work to try to influence the government policy, especially at the national level, through an education network, named Tannet, which is a national advocacy group in education.
Can you tell me a bit about the issue of teacher motivation and teacher incentives in Tanzania? As we know, without the proper incentives, the caliber and quality of teachers will suffer, which has been the case in many developing world countries. What is being done about this issue here in Tanzania?
The fact that teaching, especially in the rural areas, is a formal piece of employment is the only real incentive for most of the teachers here in the country. Teaching is a job, it is a paycheck, however, the incentives aren't often any greater than this. In the profession, in general, there is a relative amount of freedom as well, which is an added incentive, but the monetary and pay for performance rewards are certainly lacking.
What are the critical needs right now in working with teacher quality?
Again, the most critical need in the system is with the overall quality of teaching. In terms of quantity, the country has done extremely well, but the quality is not there. 14000-15000 teachers were passed through the new teacher training system last year with only 6 months of training before being placed into schools. In the rural schools, there is nothing else around in the setting for the teachers to want to be there. There is no electricity, water, or other entertainment, and for the teachers, they will not be motivated in these areas, especially coming from the training academies, which are in the urban areas. Teachers have to be more and more comfortable in their jobs to be more productive, and they need to feel the sense of achievement. The older teachers, who have had a proper training, feel much more of this commitment than the younger teachers who have been given such limited amounts of training before deployment. Also, another big problem is with the national school curriculum. The curriculum needs to be consistent for progress to truly take place, and this has not been the case here in Tanzania. It is constantly changing to appease donors and the government itself. Why is this? People make money out of the process. Actual implementation does not make money. They are constantly looking to improve, and do not stay and deliver enough before changing again, running towards the next quick fix. There needs to be much more consistency. In looking at the kids themselves, there needs to be more incentives for kids to stay in school through secondary. The statistics of advancement from primary to secondary are number-wise not very good. More consistency in this helps the quality at the end result. In Norway, every teacher needs a masters degree. If the entire cycle is helped, if there is more continuity with students from primary to secondary to university who can then come back into education, the whole system will benefit. This takes time.
Realistically, is this happening??
Yes. I see the hope in the changes between first generation and second generation educated in the country. This change is making me hopeful in the fact that there has been progress. There has been a positive shift. Literacy rates have gone up. Budget wise, the government has sustained a huge percentage going to education.
Has Oxfam done any work with educational technology in the country?
At this point, no. No matter what happens with technology, it comes back to the kids and self-learning. The basics need to be met before moving too fast into the future. We need to build a solid foundation first.
Where do you see your programs in 5 years? 10 Years?
Education work needs to be more in advocacy with the government, to adopt more approaches and to do less actual service delivery; this need to be left to the government. Involvement within the service delivery will be more with focused on infrastructure, things such as more toilets for girls, teacher accommodation, these types of things. What we need to look at more in the future is in active citizenship. We can look at what convinces and what motivates people, the people making the decisions in government. What are the motivations for these people? Where are they working from? -Rather than short term objectives, looking at how change happens here, how does the society shift here at this level, understanding how these things naturally change, building understanding, and linking this into our work. I see this as the direction that we are moving in.
Give me an example of this?
Sure. Such as one MP looking at a neighboring MP who is providing better quality services in their region, and having others come look at what they are doing and the see the results that they are getting. This is indigenous, positive, structural change. A lot is incremental change. Also, technology is changing things very fast. The biggest shift here over the last 20 years are in womens rights. This is because of TV and radio. If you see something on TV, is can cause social change. Technology is a change agent. Rather than forcing the technology upon people, just having the understanding that it can help and will progress in its own fashion is critical. The majority of Africans will access their internet through phones, not through laptops. We need to work with this. We have been using phones extensively to monitor our work and provide funding and banking services, for instance. This can be easily brought into the educational sector.
