By Lucas Lukumbo wa SUNDAY OBSERVER (Tanzania)
Up to $4million (about 5billion) may have been disbursed erroneously to the Ministry for Education and Vocational Training and around 400,000 enrolled primary school pupils in the country do not attend classes.
This revelation comes from a study by a team of the World Bank`s Human Development Department, African region, which also exposes that MKUKUTA`s objective of 90 percent of the age cohort completing primary 7 by 2010 will not be reached. MKUKUTA is a National Strategy for Growth and Poverty Reduction.
Tanzania has since 2001 implemented the Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP) which aims at delivering sustainable, universal basic education of good quality.
Its objectives are to increase in enrollment, compulsory enrolment at the age of seven and the quality of Education Management Information System.
Three experts of the World Bank, Johannes Hoogeveen, Arun Joshi and Paolo Zacchia, say in their report that inadequate administrative data are likely to have persuaded policy makers into believing that Tanzania is on track to reaching the MKUKUTA and Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets of universal primary education.
``The Mkukuta objective of 90 percent of the age cohort completing primary 7 by 2010 will not be achieved. …there are 400,000 ghost students who have been enrolled but who do not attend classes,`` the report says, adding `` at a capitation of $10 per student, it suggests that in the year 2004/2005 up to $4m may have been disbursed erroneously.``
``Primary school lasts seven years, so that the MKUKUTA target has a seven year lead time.
Even if no child in this age cohort were to repeat its class and if MKUKUTA objectives were measured at the end of 2011, at most 37 percent - those aged seven or less who have started to go to primary school in 2004/5 of the age cohort - could have completed primary 7.
The report says as only 32 percent of children aged 7 were enrolled in Standard One.
The report says the Education Management Information System (EMIS) data over-estimated net enrolment by almost 20 percent points and gross enrolment by five percentage points.
Consequently, the report says, there are almost 400,000 pupils that are enrolled according to administrative data but appear not to go to school according to the survey data.
Implication
It said the over reporting of net-enrollment has a number of important implications. ``First if net enrollment is over-estimated by approximately 20 percent points, then Tanzania is not on track to achieving the Mkukuta target of 99 percent net school enrollment by 2010 as estimates of net school enrollment for 2006 are likely to be around 80 percent,`` it says.
The report has also noted that pupils from poor backgrounds are less likely to benefit from PEDP, saying that approximately 12.8 percent of the children aged 10-13 had not entered in primary 1 in the year 2004/5.
``Children in rural areas are particularly disadvantaged as 26 percent, have not yet started, as opposed to two percent of children from the wealthiest household.
In other words, a child from the poorest quintile has an almost 25 percent higher probability not to have started primary school between the ages of 10 and 13 than a child from the wealthiest quintile,`` the report says.
The report, however, says there has been a remarkable increase in primary enrolment since the start of PEDP.
It said that while the Education Management Information System (EMIS) shows an increase in net enrollment from 56 percent to 93 percent from 1996 to 2004/5, the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data reveals that net primary school enrollment went up from around 50 percent in 1996 to 73 percent in the year 2004/5.
Cross-verification with data from other household-based sources indicates that DHS estimates are accurate, while administrative data over-estimate net enrollment by about 20 percent points, the dossier says.
``The DHS data show that gross enrollment, which counts student irrespective of age, was 102.9 percent in 2004/5 while according to the EMIS the average gross enrollment rate for 2004/5 was 108.1 percent, a discrepancy of around five percent points,`` the report says.
The difference between the 20 percent points discrepancy in net enrollment and the five percent points in gross enrollment represents therefore, students who are enrolled but do not belong to the 7-13 age class, the report says.
``These results imply that a significant improvement in the fraction of children that start school at the age of 7, significant challenges remain to ensure that all children enroll in school on time,`` it said.
According to DHS data, the fraction of children aged 7 or less in primary one as a proportion of all pupils increased from four percent in 1996 to 26 percent in 2004/5 and about 32 percent of all children aged 7 are enrolled in primary school.
Off target
However, this is far from the target of complete enrollment at age 7. Many children complete primary school at a time when they are ready to enter the labour force and reducing the age at entry remains an important objective to ensure optimal learning to facilitate the transition to secondary school and to increase lifetime earnings.
By the age of eleven, 88 percent of children go to school, at the same time some 12 percent of children aged 10 to 13 had not yet started. The report shows that these children tend to come from poor households.
Distributional analysis shows that children from the poorest 20 percent households have a one-in-four higher probability not to go to school by this age compared with 20 percent richest children.
``And when they go, they are more likely to visit schools of lower quality, that is schools with high student-teacher ratios,`` the report says.
To bring more children in school at an early age, the report suggests a particular focus on early childhood nutrition and increasing the number of teachers in rural areas and a reduction in the compulsory age at entry from seven to six.
``A programme of testing and experimenting to identify cost effective approaches that can be implemented nationwide may be needed,`` it suggests.
According to the DHS, in 2004/05, between 70 percent and 75 percent of children aged 7-13 enrolled in primary school.
Estimates show that among districts there is considerable variation in the net enrollment, varying from as low as 53 percent in Ngorongoro to as high as 96 percent in Muheza.
Within Shinyanga region there is considerable variation also.
In the region, the net enrollment rate varies from 60 percent in Bariadi to 90 percent in Shinyanga Municipal Council.
``Also if the problem with low net enrollment is driven mainly by age of entry, this becomes an important policy issue and if the a number of children are not going to school, it is important to understand who they are and which policies are required to get them enrolled,`` the report suggests.
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