Improving Education at the National Level

I have now officially finished teaching in Ngara, and am now writing from my Dar hotel room. In my last post I talked about the way district education officials could improve education in their districts, but ended by suggesting that real change in the education need to come from the top for significant improvement in the quality of education that students receive. Obviously there are many ways in which the education system could completely reorder itself, which honestly might not be the worst idea, but in this post I will discuss smaller, more easily implemented, changes that could dramatically improve the quality of education that Tanzanian Secondary School students receive.

First, the curriculum needs to be overhauled. In recent years a much larger percentage of students have begun going to secondary school, though they do not have the ability to learn the highly rigorous secondary school curriculum. In fact, this is the vast majority of secondary school students in Tanzania. Most of the curriculum might be characterized as university prep, and is not relevant for that vast majority of students. Perhaps this curriculum might be kept at a few boarding schools across the country, but for most students it is irrelevant. Most students need to stick to basics, and these basics should be taught as simply as possible, using simple language.

Indeed, as it works now students who know almost no English at all are learning Civics, History, Geography, Physics, and five other subjects. I say learning, but really they are memorizing because they don’t know most of the words used in these subjects. So, second, if English is to continue to be the language of instruction at all secondary schools, it either needs to begin with more seriousness at the primary level, or secondary school students need a year of English intensive so they are equipped to handle other subjects. And even then, the language used should be kept as simple as possible until students develop higher levels of fluency. Additonally, students are simply learning too many subjects. For most students one science class and one social studies class a year would be sufficient. Basic competency in the areas judged to be most essential and relevant to the lives of students should be emphasized, and the curriculum should be mindful of the fact that most students live in extremely rural areas, often without electricity.

Third, the exam system needs to be overhauled. Most of the exams are a bad measures of student ability, and students who barely demonstrate competency over material are considered to have passed. For instance, this year for students to “pass” their Form II exam to move on to Form II they had to average 30% in all their subjects. There is no point in passing students who have demonstrated the understood 30% of the material, especially when large sections of the test are multiple choice: simple probability suggests that for every multiple choice question one had a 25% chance of getting it right. Combined with a more manageable curriculum, exams should be simplified, and students should have to demonstrate mastery of important concepts to pass. And at the level of individual schools, students should demonstrate an overall level of competency to be able to move up a Form at the end of the school year. For instance, a student who scores under 20% on all their exams should not be allowed to continue their studies.

Finally, the national education system should implement some of the suggestions I suggested in my last post for improving education at the district level. There are many ways to improve the quality of education students receive in Tanzania, and these musings are far from exhaustive, but I think they represent a good starting point in changing things for the better. Obviously I’m not in a position to implement any of these suggestions, but I didn’t want to be so negative about education in Tanzania without offering some real and tangible suggestions about how it might be improved.

There will be at least two more blog posts before I officially close out this blog, but I don’t think they will be making it to the internet until at least June 10, and maybe not until later in June after I return to the states. I have some vacation to enjoy!