Benki ya Dunia WB imesema inafikiria uwezekano wa kuikopesha serikali ya Tanzania mkopo wa dola za kimarekani milioni 500 sawa na Trilioni 1.152 za Kitanzania kwa ajili ya kuboresha sekta ya Elimu, mkopo uliokuwa umesimamishwa na benki hiyo kutokana na Rais Magufuli kutangaza kuzuia wanafunzi wanaopata mimba wakiwa shuleni kutoendelea na masomo.
Benki ya Dunia yenye makao yake nchini Marekani imetoa taarifa hiyo kwa mujibu wa CNN.
Kwa mujibu wa taarifa hiyo, benki ya Dunia imedai kuwa ilipokea barua kutoka wanaharakati kutoka nchini Tanzania ambao walieleza kuwa, Benki ya Dunia kuendelea kutoa mkopo huo ni kuendelea kuwabagua wanafunzi kwa kigezo cha waliojifungua, wenye ujauzito na wasio wajawazito.
Hivyo walitaka benki hiyo kusitisha mkopo huo tangu mwaka 2018, mpaka serikali itakapobadili sera yake ya kumzuia mwanafunzi aliyepata mimba kuendelea na masomo.
Msimamo kuhusu mwanafunzi aliyepata mimba kutoendelea na masomo ulitolewa mwaka 2018 na Mh. Rais wa Jamhuri ya muungano wa Tanzania Dr. John Pombe Magufuli ambapo alisema “kama mwanafunzi atapata mimba akiwa masomoni akatafute kazi nyingine yakufanya, serikali haitasomesha wazazi, kama mtu ameamua kuzaa akalee mtoto wake hakuna kuendelea na elimu”.
Naye Mbunge Kigoma Mjini kupitia wa ACT Wazalendo Mh. Zitto Kabwe aliiambia Benki ya Dunia kuwa “mnawezaje kuruhusu mkopo huu kuendelea katika Mazingira ya sera kama hizi? Sera hii inaendekeza ubaguzi kwa watoto wa kike” alihoji mbunge huyo.
Takwimu za benki ya dunia zinasema kuwa nchini Tanzania watoto wa kike kati ya miaka 15 hadi 19 ni wana ujauzito au wana watoto. Benki hiyo imeeleza kuwa lengo la mkopo huo ni kwajili ya kuondoa ubaguzi na unyanyapaa kwa katika utoaji wa elimu.
Kwa mujibu wa Mtendaji wa benki hiyo kwa nchi za Afrika ameeleza kuwa, benki ya dunia haitaendelea kutoa mkopo huo mpaka serikali ya Tanzania itakapoamua kubadili msimamo wake kuhusu kuwazuia wanaopata mimba wakiwa shuleni kuendelea na masomo.
“Serikali ya Tanzania haijatekeleza ahadi na masharti ya benki ya dunia mpaka sasa, hivyo tunaangalia namna yakusitisha mkopo huu moja kwa moja”. Alisema Mkurugenzi huyo.
Aidha benki ya dunia imetaja nchi za Tanzania, Burundi na Malawi kuwa ndio nchi ambazo zinatarajiwa kufanyiwa maamuzi hayo ya kuondolewa mkopo huo ifikapo jumanne ijayo.
Naye mbunge wa Kigoma Mjini mara baada ya Benki ya Dunia kutoa taarifa hiyo alinukuliwa katika mtandao wake wa Twitter akisema “Mkopo wa benki ya dunia utalipwa na kila mtanzania, serikali lazima iweke mazingira wa watoto wakike kupata elimu bila kubaguliwa. Watoto waliopata ujauzito shuleni wawe na fursa yakurejea shuleni bila bugudha wala wala unyanyapaa. Badala yakulialia rekebisheni mkataba wa mikopo” alisema Zitto.
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World Bank to consider giving Tanzania $500 million education loan despite ban on pregnant schoolgirls
A multi-million dollar World Bank education loan to Tanzania is back on the table for possible approval next week after it was pulled over a year ago amid concerns about the country's policy of banning pregnant girls and young mothers from attending state school.
The revamped $500 million loan pledges to provide pregnant girls and new mothers with "Alternative Education Pathways" but falls short of calling for a reversal of the ban.
The meeting of the executive board to consider the loan will take place on Tuesday. Bella Bird, the World Bank's Country Director for Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi and Somalia, is set to step down on Friday, according to a source at the bank.
Tanzanian activists have written a letter, seen by CNN, to the executive board urging them to stop the loan until the country passes a law that guarantees the rights of pregnant girls to attend regular secondary schools and ends mandatory pregnancy tests. CNN visited three Tanzanian schools in 2018 where girls from grades eight and up were given compulsory pregnancy tests.
Tanzania uses a morality clause in a 2002 education law to give schools the legal framework needed to expel pregnant students -- the practice originally dates back to the 1960s. The law has been more widely applied since President John Pombe Magufuli took office in 2015.
A $300 million educational loan to Tanzania was withdrawn in 2018 over concerns about expelling pregnant girls and the introduction of a law that made it a crime to question official statistics.
The Tanzanian government amended the statistics law last year, but stopped short of any formal changes to the way it treats pregnant girls.
A World Bank spokesman for Tanzania said that since 2018 the bank has worked with the Tanzanian government to find a solution. He said the purpose of the reworked loan program was to "enhance the quality and provision of education."
"The program has been redesigned ... to ensure girls and boys who drop out, including pregnant girls, have alternate education options for themselves."
Asked why the bank didn't require a guarantee that girls who get pregnant would be allowed to continue in state school if they wish to, the spokesman repeated the current solution was a result of an agreement between the World Bank and Magufuli.
The Tanzanian government declined to comment to CNN.
According to a World Bank document outlining the loan, about 5,500 girls were not able to continue their secondary education due to adolescent pregnancy and young motherhood in 2017.
Around a quarter of Tanzanian girls aged between 15 and 19 are mothers or pregnant. According to the United Nations Population Fund, the percentage of teenage girls who have given birth or who were pregnant increased to 27% in 2016 from 23% in 2010.
Child marriage, as young as 15, which has been barred since 2016, remains an issue -- 36% of women aged 25-49 have been married before they turned 18, according to official data from 2016, the latest available.
Opposition leader Zitto Kabwe told CNN that the new loan would enable the stigma around pregnant girls in Tanzania to continue.
"The way the loan is been structured [means] the young girls who get pregnant for whatever reason will be put in separate schools," he told CNN.
"This is not right. I am wondering how can the World Bank allow this."
Kabwe also sent the World Bank a letter about the loan, highlighting the worsening human and gender rights situation in the country. Kabwe asked the bank to suspend lending to the government "until basic checks and balances are restored in Tanzania."
Elin Martínez, senior researcher at the Children's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, called the reworked program a "workaround."
"The government has not fulfilled the promises and the conditions that were set last year," she said. "We thought that the World Bank was not going to proceed with that loan until the government adopted a policy where it actually explicitly said 'we will end the discrimination against girls'.
"That has not happened. [The government] will not remove the discriminatory ban, that's quite clear now."
Source: CNN