By Dickson Straitony – Art in Tanzania internship

Educational Programs

Children Under School Age

Community Psychology Program

Introduction

 Pre-school education involves education and care. The early childhood period is a crucial and sensitive time for children’s holistic development, including social, physical, emotional and cognitive development. The child needs to be positive with the environment as they are very active in learning everything they interact with by imitation and experience. A child’s learning and development occur in multiple contexts, from home to school, and should be well-prepared, stimulating, and supportive for holistic learning and development (Sestini, 1985). Play is the best method of learning for children in this age group. All activities must be arranged based on play, and all activities should be planned and organized based on the child’s interest. Where. The learning process should start from what the child knows, a bottom-up approach.  

Preschool education considers the needs of children and individual differences, should support the child’s psychomotor, social-emotional, linguistic and cognitive development, build self-care skills and prepare the child for school continuity as it should impart self-respect, self-confidence and self-control.

 To respond to the needs of children, preschool education institutions should provide environments that comply with an understanding of democratic education. 

 The education process should start from what children already know and provide room for learning by trying and experimenting. Education given in the preschool phase should contribute to the development of children in terms of affection, respect, cooperation, responsibility, tolerance, solidarity and sharing. 

Background

Tanzania is a country in East Africa in Sub-Saharan Africa with a population of 59.7 million. Of the population, 77% live in rural areas, and only 23% live in urban areas of about 945,087 km2. According to UNESCO (2015), Tanzania has an adult literacy rate of 77.8%, whereas the male literacy rate is 83.2%, and for females, it is 73.09%.   

According to Education for All (EFA) of 1990, as an international initiative for making education to benefit every citizen in every society, the first goal out of six is to “Expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for most vulnerable and disadvantaged children”. Tanzania adopted the Pre-primary Education Policy in 1995 as part of the Education and Training Policy, where all primary schools established pre-primary education programs as part of a formal education program for two years that included children aged from five to six enrolled before joining primary school but not mandatory to that age where it depends on the parents.  According to Mtahabwa and Rao (2009), currently young children in Tanzania attend programmes in child care centre nursery schools, Montessori or other preschools and pre-primary classes which are affiliated to primary schools. Children participate in different programs, that are nursery, Daycare, Kindergarten, Montessori and pre-primary school. A preschool educational program is considered to be the preparation for primary education, and it is the period of transition from home to a school environment where parents and teachers have to prepare the transition environments for child school readiness.

Total Enrollment in Pre-Primary Education has increased by 46.1% from 1,069,823 in 2015 to 1,562,770 in 2016. The increase is a result of community sensitization and a strong partnership of the government and parents, faith-based organizations (FBOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) in providing Pre-Primary Education. (URT 2016) Pre-primary, Primary and Secondary Education Statistics in brief. In 2019, Prep-primary school enrolment was reported at 41.59%, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, and this indicated a drop in the number of enrolments from 46.1% in 2016 to 41.59% in 2019. Different private sectors provide education and care for children below five years as part of the preschool programs.

Volunteer and intern in nursery school in Tanzania in Africa työharjoittelu koulut afrikka vapaaehtoisena koulussa afrikassa

  Problems facing the accessibility of preschool education in Tanzania

The success of the Early Childhood program has been due to the efforts of both the public and private sectors, which have linked together, although not all Tanzanians have been able to access it.

Low social-economic status of parents. This is the challenge poor families face in access to education; the charging fees in private schools are not affordable to many parents in that case, they fail to send their children to preschool centres where they opt to keep them at home helping with different domestic work as the number of households involve in agricultural activities, and they become street children.

Education quality and resource constraints in public schools. (UNICEF Tanzania, 2018).  Compared to private schools in Tanzania, the government has not invested much in ensuring quality early childhood education, and most children who attend public preschools do not achieve satisfactory basic learning skills for school continuity. The challenge of resources for teaching and learning in public preschools, such as stimulating learning materials and a supportive environment, was also that preschool and primary schools share the same classes learning by shifts.

 Low parents’ awareness towards early childhood education. In Tanzania, many parents are unaware of the importance of early childhood education for their children, specifically in villages and remote areas. The value of education is still low in Tanzania villages, which don’t send them to school, preschool, or primary school, and they believe in the workforce (Pambas, 2010). So, children from this group of parents are affected, and if they enrol in primary school, they have limited fundamental learning skills.  

Public preschools are located far away from the home environment. In some regions, children have to walk for miles to school with no passenger vehicles, and if they are available, some parents may fail to afford daily fares with other expenses. Parents fear the security of their children; hence, they do not enrol them in preschool.

Inadequate preschool teachers have become a challenge to public primary and secondary schools and preschools. Primary school teachers take the role of teaching due to a lack of professional preschool teachers while they teach primary schools. As a result, they have a heavy workload that reduces work efficiency, and sometimes, they volunteer; nonprofessional teachers teach those preschool children in private centres. They don’t have professional knowledge and skills in teaching and learning to those preschool children, which leads to poor quality education. Those who are qualified don’t get in-service training as a part of professional development (Kitta, 2004).   

Traditional norms, cultural values and gender discrimination. Gender inequalities due to discriminatory norms hurt children’s access to education from early childhood education and above, as families cannot afford to educate all children fully. Girls are not given much importance and are treated inferior to boys children, especially in rural areas within Tanzania (Mligo 2018).  In some societies, norms around marriageability and norms related to the gender division of labour all affect girls’ education. Children with disabilities also face challenges in access to education due to negative perceptions of their ability to learn.

 Possible solutions      

Involve parents and the community as active participants in early childhood education and care intervention programs. The involvement of these two actors in children’s educational experience as the parents participate to children’s education by actively supporting, encouraging, and providing a supportive home learning environment; when parents are involved, they become experts to their child and reinforce the development of preschool program The child and his/her family should actively take part in the process of education as it is urged that when parents are involved in child education, the possibility of that child to school achievements is higher     

Provision of funds from the government to preschools. Due to preschool settings not being conducive and supportive for children, the government should provide funds from internal or external sources. Therefore, preschool education should have a budget for better investment and improvement in delivering quality education. Enough preschool classes with supportive infrastructures for both children, including disadvantaged children 

 The government has to increase the number of preschool centres. In some areas of Tanzania, the number of children exceeds the school facilities. As a result, the indoor activities are all done outside. However, the limited number of preschools results in long distances from home to school, and few can attend; hence, dropouts and truancy increase.

Conclusion

Tanzania, as a developing country investing in early childhood education, is the crucial step towards development that will ensure the public provision of high-quality early childhood education by establishing clear policies and work to ensure the increase in enrolment, registration and curriculum development as well as producing a large number of quality early childhood teachers. The government should work more on sensitizing the community and parents to the value of preschool education and setting a suitable environment to raise their socioeconomic status.   

Reference

Kitta S. (2004).  Enhancing mathematics teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and skills in   Tanzania. Enschede: University of Twente. 

Mligo I. (2018). Enhancing Young Childrens Acces to Early Childhood Education and Care in      Tanzania. Contemprary perspective on Child Psychology and Education,          

Pambas, T. (2010). Stakeholders’ conception of young children’s readiness for primary    schooling in Tanzania.Unpublished M.A Thesis, University of Dodoma.   

Sestini, E. (1985). Preschool Education: Recent Developments in Preschool Policies and Provision in Developing Countries and in the UK. In Lillis, K. M. (Ed.). School, and          Community in Less Developed Countries. Biddles Limited, Guiford King’s Lynn,             Greatain

UNICEF Tanzania. 2018. Education :The Situation 

            http://www.unicef.org/tanzania/education.html

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