Tanzania - Educational Systemoverview
Between the ages of 7 and 14 education is compulsory and free. The adult literacy rate is 68 percent, which is high for Africa. The national language is Swahili, but English is widely used in schools. Chagga, Gogo, Haya, Hehe, Sukuma, Maasai, and other languages are also spoken, but rarely used as the medium of instruction
In the 20 years preceding World War I, Germany created a three-tiered system of education. There were 60 nebenschulen (primary schools), which offered 3 years of courses in reading, writing, and arithmetic; there were also 9 hauptschulen that offered 2 additional years of vocational training. Germany built one oberschule or high school in Tanga, which offered clerical, industrial, and teacher training, as well as some academic courses. At its zenith, the high school had 500 students and 4 German teachers on its staff. Although Swahili was the language of instruction, German was offered as a foreign language. Missionaries were also encouraged to create schools for the indigenous population. By 1900, there were 600 missionary schools with a combined enrollment of over 50,000 students. In 1914, more than 95 percent of students enrolled in Tanganyika's schools were in mission schools. The number of schools had grown to over 1,000, and total enrollment climbed to 150,000 students. Government schools aimed to produce clerks, tax collectors, interpreters, artisans, and craftsmen, while missionaries aimed to produce westernized Christian converts, alienated from their own traditional culture. Since missionaries educated most Africans, it is not surprising that at independence many were hostile to traditional chiefs. Missionary schools were uncompromising spearheads of Westernization.
The German system did not educate girls because Western education began along the Muslim Coast where custom dictated that girls not be educated. It emphasized submissiveness, not enlightenment, in women.
This educational system laid a firm foundation for a national language, Kiswahili, and secular education. German administrators often corresponded in Swahili. The Germans laid a small but solid foundation for Tanzania's educational system. In 1903 there were 8 government schools and 15 mission schools. No statistics are available on the number of students in 1903. By 1911 the German colonial government had built 83 schools, while missionaries built 918 schools in Tanganyika. Government schools had 3,192 students, while missionary schools taught 63,455 students. In 1914, there were 99 German colonial government sponsored schools. By contrast, missionaries had constructed 1,852 schools. Government schools educated 6,100 students, but missionary schools educated an amazing 155,287. Clearly, missionaries educated the overwhelming majority of Tanganyikan pupils during the German colonial era.
The German system of education put emphasis on practical education and health improvement. When England took over, they were impressed by the standard of literacy reached by Tanzanian Africans, especially those who had had the opportunity to study science and math in Germany. They produced skilled workers for the German colonial enterprise. Their schools were less like the German gymnasiums, which emphasized Latin and classical learning, and more like the German Volksschule, which were geared to the general public. The British adopted the German policy of cooperation with mission schools in the fight against illiteracy.
All education stopped in Tanzania during World War I. With Germany's defeat, the victors divided the territory between Portugal, Belgium, and Britain. Britain administered what came to be known as Tanganyika, a trust territory, under a League of Nations mandate. Britain's stated educational purpose in 1920 was to develop the people, as far as possible, on their own lines and in accordance with their own values and customs. Britain allowed missionaries to play a major role in education and subsidized schools, which gave them greater control over the curriculum. The Universities Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) schools were Anglican and very British. Anglican schools had the biggest single influence on Tanzanian education during the British era. Despite this, over 80 percent of mission schools were foreign, non-British. This presented a security problem after 1926 when the League of Nations readmitted Germany, and German missionaries returned to teach in Tanzania.
The British government needed to educate the children of the local elite to make their policy of indirect rule work. They opened a special school at Tabora in 1924 for sons of chiefs. Their aim was to produce future administrators, clerks, and artisans. They created a bold experiment at the Malangali government school whereby Africans were to be helped to preserve and modify their own culture until a satisfactory adjustment was made to the Europeanized environment. Missionaries denounced this school on the grounds that tribal elders were using it to inculcate pagan, non-Christian beliefs. Their hostility caused the school to fail. Missionaries opposed also native authority schools paid for by African chiefs to train their own elite. These schools ultimately failed, too. The missionaries' goals were to produce devout, educated Christians. They were not concerned with manpower needs. Missionaries devoted attention to vocational training so that African Christians could make money to take care of themselves, as well as give to the churches. Thus, they built many ill-equipped bush schools. The British government, on the other hand, wanted to produce only as many graduates as it planned to hire for existing work.
The most critical element in the British vocational curriculum was agriculture. This quickly degenerated into school headmasters exploiting free student labor on large school farms. Parents resented this. For most African farmers, education was one way to remove themselves from harsh rural living, not a means of returning to rural areas with improved techniques and the ability to make farming pay more through the application of science. Each family felt that it needed at least one salaried person to earn money in urban areas and remit cash to village relatives. Africans did not want to return to the land, so they pressed for post primary education. The British continued the German pattern of using Swahili as the medium of instruction. The use of vernacular languages for instruction was losing ground. However, as Africans discovered that knowledge of English was associated with higher pay, English began to force out Swahili as the language of instruction in high schools and universities. Just prior to independence it was common to use English as the medium of instruction from the fourth grade on. Swahili was used in the lower grades.
Between 1923 and 1961, enrollment in Tanzanian schools can be described in the following manner. British colonial education in Tanzania in 1923 witnessed enrollments of 4,907 students in government schools. That same year mission schools educated 115,000 students and no statistics are available on Assisted schools. By 1931 British colonial schools were educating 7,505 students, while Mission schools educated 159,959; again, no statistics are available for Assisted schools. The year 1935 saw 8,105 pupils in British schools, 217,736 pupils in Mission schools, and no numbers are available on the number of pupils in Assisted schools. In 1941, there were 13,370 students in British colonial government schools, no numbers are available for Mission schools, and 26,300 students were attending Assisted schools. In the midst of World War II, British schools enrolled 17,005 students, no figures are available for Mission schools, and Assisted schools enrolled 31,200 students. A new pattern emerged when World War II ended. America entered the war based on the Atlantic Agreement, which guaranteed that if the United States helped Britain win, Britain would end colonialism and open its lucrative markets to American competition. It was not surprising, therefore, that by 1961, in preparation for independence, Mwingira reported that British government schools enrolled 486,470 students. No statistics are available on enrollments in 1961 for either Mission or Assisted schools.
On Zanzibar, the vast majority of schools were governmental schools. In some ways, Zanzibar's system compared favorably with mainland Tanganyika's. African primary school students received six years of education rather than four, and no school fees were charged on the islands; mainland children paid fees. In rural areas Africans attended primary school up to grade six, after which they went to middle school through grade eight. City students attended primary school uninterrupted from grades 1 through 8. Urban schools were better funded, had better teachers and, consequently, more children from urban schools gained entry into secondary schools. In 1958, approximately 63 percent of primary school aged urban children attended school. By contrast, in the same year, less than 35 percent of rural children attended primary school. Africans faired better on the mainland where 45 percent were in school. On the island of Pemba, only 14 percent of rural children were enrolled in school. The few missionary and private schools on the islands had a negligible influence on the educational system. For all intents and purposes Zanzibar's educational system, before the revolution, was one of the sparks that ignited revolution.
Former president Nyerere opposed a system that allowed money to buy votes and advantaged entrance into high cost, high quality schools for rich children, thus excluding the majority of students who might be just as intelligent, but lacked basic necessities. All schools became nationalized. Most colonial schools were run by missionaries and were private. Independence ushered in an era in which public schools dominated the training of Tanzania's next generation of workers, professionals, and leaders. Some ethnic groups, such as the Chagga, grew cash crops, had efficient cooperatives to help farmers succeed, and could afford a better education for their children. Other ethnic groups, like the Hadza, who hunted animals and gathered nuts and fruits for a living, were poor and had no idea what advantages an education could confer upon their children. To insure equal educational opportunities, Nyerere created a school entrance system based on ethnic quotas. He did this in the interest of fairness and to make the future workforce and leadership representative of all Tanzania's citizens. Without a doubt, this selection system excluded some bright, hard working, deserving students. It also admitted some illprepared students from other ethnic groups, but it created a national culture of inclusion, reduced ethnic tensions, made students from all ethnic groups feel that they had opportunities for advancement, and brought national stability and peace. It seems a small price to pay for the tranquility it has bought Tanzania.
United Nations' surveys of education in Tanzania reveal that in 1980 Tanzania enrolled 3,361,228 students in primary schools, 67,396 students in secondary schools and no statistics are available on university enrollment. A decade later, primary schools enrolled nearly 3.3 million students, while secondary schools enrolled 167,150 students, and Dar es Salaam University enrolled 7,468 students. The year 1996 saw these numbers increase as there were nearly 3.9 million students enrolled in primary schools, an additional 211,664 students enrolled in secondary schools, and university enrollments had doubled to 14,882. The year 1997 witnessed 4 million students enrolled in primary schools throughout Tanzania, an additional 234,743 students enrolled in secondary schools, and 17,812 students enrolled in universities in Tanzania (United Nations Statistical Yearbook 57).
From Georgia State University.
