Author: LYDIA SHEKIGHENDA
AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE government will this financial year implement a special project aimed at improving the quality of secondary education and address the challenges born out of increased students enrolment.
The implementation of fee-free education policy has massively increased the number of children joining secondary education across the country.
According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, between 2015 and 2020, secondary enrolment increased from 1.8 million to 2.4 million.
The secondary age population is, meanwhile, estimated to double to 4.1million come 2024. Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Dr Leonard Akwilapo said that in addition to increasing access to secondary education, the project will provide a responsive learning environment for girls and improve completion of quality secondary education for girls and boys.
He made the remarks at the education stakeholders’ forum held in Dar es Salaam yesterday, which aimed at collecting views for the project.
“The project will focus on enabling young girls to continue their secondary education despite economic and social barriers … it will improve the completion of quality learner – friendly secondary education for both girls and boys,” Dr Akwilapo said.
He noted that, in the past five years the government focused on the construction and improvement of infrastructure from primary to secondary schools.
Dr Akwilapo said that the government’s fee-free education policy has resulted in an increased number of students in both primary and secondary schools.
He observed that the number of students joining secondary schools is expected to surge in the next two years, since the beneficiaries of the free education will be joining secondary education.
The PS noted that SEQ UIP has been designed to address, among others, the challenges associated with the increased enrolment such as large class sizes, lack of skilled and motivated teachers and poor learning environment.
For his part, the Ministry’s Deputy Permanent Secretary Mr Gerald Mweli said that the SEQ UIP operation will help to address the challenges by empowering girls through secondary education and life skills, digitally – enabling effective teaching and learning and reducing barriers to girls education by facilitating access to secondary schools.
He said the multibillionproject will benefit 6.5 million secondary school students and 20,000 teachers among others.
Mr Mweli said the five – year Secondary Education Improvement Project (SEQ UIP) 2020/2021- 2024/2025 , funded by the World Bank ( WB) to the tune of US 500 million dollars (equivalent to 1.2trn/- ) will involve construction of 1,000 secondary schools to reduce the distance between a student’s home and her school.
He added that a total of 26 schools will also be built , one in each region for girl students who will pursue science subjects and upgrade mathematics, science and language teachers’ skills through regular in- service training.
“The project will also introduce digital technology in secondary education to facilitate mathematics and science teaching and improve learning and teacher efficiency,” he said.
He noted that through the project 1,500 secondary schools will be connected to internet services and provided with ICT equipment for learning.
