Africa-Press – Tanzania. Dar es Salaam.
Education experts in both Zanzibar and Tanzania mainland have praised the move by the Isle’s government to re-establish seventh grade as the end of primary education, calling it one of the efforts to strengthen the Union.
This comes after almost 15 years of Zanzibar eliminating seventh grade from its primary education system making the island’s primary education system different from that of the Mainland while the national exam is the same.
On Friday, Zanzibar’s Education and Vocational Training aminister Simai Mohammed Said announced the restoration of the system from 2022 ending the one that the 2006 Education Policy directed primary education to start from Standard One to Standard Six.
On Friday reports had it that the Minister for Education – Zanzibar, Mr Said noted that the aim was to enable students to access pre-pre-primary, primary and secondary education opportunities at an appropriate age.
“After the introduction of the sixth grade, stakeholders commented on the ability of student’s vis-à-vis their age, the number of subjects and the ability to cope with those subjects at the primary level and their development when they enter secondary education,” he said.
He said due to various changes and development strategies in the country as well as the various encounters facing the education sector, the ministry has seen the need to conduct a thorough assessment and provide permanent solutions to those challenges.
“It plans to make changes to the primary education level by re-establishing the seventh grade, so these changes will make the end of primary school to be seventh grade from 2022,” he said.
He said all the basic needs including curriculum, teachers, textbooks and classrooms have been considered and addressed before starting the class in the coming year.
However, the excitement of this initiative is not only because it will take into account the age of students enrolling in secondary education, but stakeholders have seen it as one of the tools to further strengthen the union.
Dr Issa Jumaa Mohamed, a retired lecturer at the State University of Zanzibar, said that the Zanzibar education sector needed to be aligned with that of Tanzania mainland, noting that the move was timely.
“All this is the result of the current President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Ms Samia Suluhu Hassan, who showed from the beginning of her tenure intention to remove obstacles within the Union. This was one of the obstacles for us,” he said.
For his part, Dr Amon Fumbuka an expert based in Dar es Salaam said: “The national examination is administered by the National Examinations Council of Tanzania (Necta), and this is a major step towards equity in education matters to facilitate the exchange of scholars between the Mainland and the Isles.”
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