The World Bank’s Board of
Executive Directors today approved a credit from IDA, the World Bank’s fund for
the poorest countries, which will enable millions of young Tanzanians to access
and complete secondary education in safer and better learning environments.
This is
according to today’s WB press release.
Early February this year, Tanzania civil society
groups and opposition political leaders called on the World Bank to suspend the loan agreement in hopes
that the bank could use its leverage to advance democratic and human rights
policies with the country’s government.
The $500
million (1.155 trillion shillings) Secondary Education Quality Improvement
Project (SEQUIP) will directly benefit about 6.5 million secondary school
students by strengthening government-run schools and establishing stronger
educational pathways for students who leave the formal school system.
The WB Country Director for Tanzania, Mara Warwick, said that every
child in Tanzania deserves a good education, but thousands are denied this
life-changing opportunity each year. Adding that “the project puts the
country’s young people front and centre; it also dedicates two-thirds of its
resources to better and safer learning environments for girls,”
Tanzania’s
fee-free basic education policy has led to more children entering school:
primary enrolment rose from 8.3 million to 10.1 million between 2015 and 2018,
while secondary enrolment increased from 1.8 million to 2.2 million.
But
despite better access, the secondary education system suffers from low quality
and high dropout rates.
Nearly
60,000 students (30 percent) fail to complete their schooling each year, and
children are not learning enough, particularly in mathematics and science, due
to a lack of skilled and motivated teachers, large class sizes, and a poor
learning environment.
The Global
Director for Education for the World Bank, Jaime Saavedra, said that Tanzania,
like many countries around the world, is suffering from a learning crisis,
where children are either not in school, or are in school but not learning.
He said that of 100 children who start school in
Tanzania, less than half will finish primary and only three will complete their
upper secondary schooling. “This is a crisis! This project will support better
quality secondary education, while helping make school a safer place where
children can thrive, and where all girls, no matter the circumstances, have a
pathway to complete their secondary education.” He stressed.
According
to the WB release, over the past two years, about 300,000 children, half of
them girls, have been unable to continue their lower secondary education due to
insufficient space in public schools.
 |
| WB Country Director for Tanzania, Mara Warwick |
In
addition, an estimated 5,500 Tanzanian girls who are pregnant drop out every
year. SEQUIP has been designed to enable more adolescent girls and boys to
transition to upper secondary education.
WB said
the project will give pregnant girls, young mothers, and other vulnerable
children who leave school early, the possibility to return to the formal system
and complete their education. It tackles the issues facing pregnant girls with
an approach informed by civil society organizations and NGOs, in Tanzania and
around the world.
Caren Grown, the Senior Director of the Gender Group
at the World Bank said
that the project design strives to
give pregnant girls and young mothers a better chance to complete their
education.
“The Bank has stepped up its work to create a
new generation of education programs that emphasize safe school environments
for girls and boys, including measures that reduce gender-based violence,
corporal punishment, bullying, and other forms of violence in and around
schools. It gives girls better quality choices and opportunities for completing
their secondary education.” Caren said.
The
project will be implemented under the Bank’s new Environmental and Social
Framework; the government has committed to offering all stakeholders
opportunities to engage in consultations during project implementation and to
supporting construction of school infrastructure that is safe and built to good
environmental and social standards. Citizen engagement in the project will be
enhanced through civil society input and strong mechanisms to redress
grievances.
The
population of secondary education students in Tanzania could double to 4.1
million by 2024. The five-year SEQUIP operation will help address this demand
through four components, with disbursement of funds linked to clearly defined,
measurable, and independently verified results through four components.
The WB delayed the scheduled vote to approve the loan due to
concerns about Tanzania President John Magufuli’s enforcement of a law that
prohibits pregnant girls from attending state schools.
Magufuli,
who took office in 2015, left little doubt about his stance on this policy
after he was lobbied by civil society groups to overturn it.
“In my
administration, as long as I am president ... no pregnant student will be
allowed to return to school. We cannot allow this immoral behaviour to permeate
our primary and secondary schools,” Magufuli said in June 2018.
Tanzanian civil society groups, politicians opposing
Magufuli’s policies, and international rights groups pushed back on the plan,
however, arguing that the Tanzanian government had eroded institutions that
might provide independent oversight of the project’s implementation and had
done nothing to reverse the policies that made the project untenable in the
first place. - Africa
No comments:
Post a Comment