The Girl-Child and Government Service Provision.pdf - Tanzania ...

• Consultations: Institutions consulted were UNICEF,Kuleana, Tanzania Media Women’s Association(TAMWA), the University of Dar es Salaam and the TanzaniaAssociation of NGOs.• Pretesting: Before the actual field work, pretesting ofthe designed interview guide and focus-group discussionquestions was done at Bunju area in Dar es Salaam.This helped to improve the questions, estimate thetime that would be utilised and the number of researchassistants that would be needed.• Research assistants: About five research assistants wereengaged in each of the WVT zones. Before going intothe field, the lead researcher familiarised them withbackground information on the research as well as theresearch questions, objectives and methodology. Toolsfor data collection and skills on how to go about collectingdata in the interview sessions were facilitated.• Analysis of data: The analysis of the data was done soonafter completion of the field work in all five projects.The raw data was verified, coded and then analysedusing SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science). Adescriptive and associative analysis of all independentand dependent variables was performed. The results ofthe analysis were then summarised, conceptualised, extrapolatedand interpreted. The unit of analysis in thissurvey has been a WV project community, primaryschool and health facility located in these projects.ResultsPrimary schoolsAt the time of the study, Tanzania was in the second yearof implementing a five-year PEDP that articulates the visionof universal primary education and is anchored in thewider Education and Training Policy, the overarching PovertyReduction Strategy and the Tanzania DevelopmentVision 2025. The following achievements, among others,were attained during the first year of implementing thePEDP:• about 1.6 million pupils were enroled for standard Icompared to 1.1 million in 2001;• 12,868 new classrooms were constructed;• the gross enrolment rate and the net erolment ratioboth increased significantly from 2001 to 2002;• the government recruited 7,135 qualified teachers and6,919 pre-service teacher trainees;• a programme for professional development of teacherswas launched to ensure that all teachers with grade B/C qualifications attain grade A qualifications;• 2,228 new teachers’ houses have been constructed(mostly near rural schools); and• the transition rate to secondary schools increasedfrom 19.5 per cent in 2000 to 21.7 per cent in 2001.Despite the above gains, the research revealed that Shindiga,Misima, Nduruma and Kabale primary schools have only apercentage of the classrooms (60 per cent), staff houses (18per cent) and teachers (61 per cent) that they need.The Shindiga primary school has a serious overcrowdingproblem, with 120 pupils in standard III class, compared toa required standard of 45. Some pupils at this school mustwalk about eight kilometres to school. In addition, theschool has no water and only six latrines (of the 30 thatare actually needed).At Misima primary school, through PEDP implementation,474 pupils enroled for standard I in January 2003. This hasseriously affected the whole school system, as standard Ialone consists of 10 classes – equivalent to the total capacityof the school. To deal with the situation all teachersin this school have been forced to teach standard I from8 – 10:30 a.m. while the rest of the pupils (standards II-VII)begin their classes at 10:30 a.m. or later. Misima school hasa shortage of teaching books; on average, the book-to-studentratio is 1:8. Focus-group discussion with pupils at theschool revealed that the school has no water.Nduruma primary school has shortages of teaching books,especially for standards III–VII, where a class of 80 pupilsare sharing three books. Students indicated that in someclasses one book is shared by the whole class. Ndurumaprimary school is the only school in this study that hasaccess to water for use by pupils at school.At Kabale primary school the head of the school informedus that the school has only half of the desks it needs. Theschool has a high number of orphans in the school (118pupils out of 451), mainly as a result of HIV/AIDS. Theschool has nothing to offer this large group. WVT, theLutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church havebeen running a programmes in this school to support theseorphans. The school also faces overcrowding problems, withover 80 pupils sharing one classroom instead of the requiredstandard of 45. This makes the teachers’ work as wellThe Girl-Child and Government Service Provision 39