Ministry of Education and Vocational Training:::::

Nationalization of Schools And Colleges of Education
One of the earliest interventions was in the 1970s when the government directed the Ministry of Education (MoE), to provide equal access of education to all children without bias of sex, color, ethnicity, economic status, or creed. Nationalizing most religious schools immediately after independence and abolition of school fees at all levels evidenced this provision of equity of access to education. The nationalization of schools created opportunities for every child, girls and boys, to have the right of getting education at any school in the country.
Even after nationalization of schools, the MoE noted that there lacked gender parity in enrollment, retention and performance in the national examinations whereby the girl child was more disadvantaged compared to the boy child.

The Musoma Resolution 1975
The Musoma Resolution had required that those aspiring to continue with studies at higher learning institutions both inside and outside the country through government sponsorship should first complete a one year work experience. However the government made a deliberate exception for girls to ensure that those who qualified for entry to the University proceeded directly without the delay of the one-year work experience so as to minimize possible ‘drop-out’ through marriages during the one-year of work experience

Quota system
In the same year, 1975, it was realized that fewer girls were proceeding to secondary schools due to low academic performance in the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE). In order to improve access to secondary schools the MoE introduced a special quota system for selection to enter Form 1, first for all regions to reduce regional disparity and a special quota system specifically for girls in each region to reduce gender parity.

Institute of Adult Education
The Institute of Adult Education (IAE) is a public service institution that traces its history to before independence. In 1963 it became a department of the University College, Dar es Salaam. IAE was granted autonomous status by Act of Parliament No. 12, 1975 and its responsibilities expanded and clearly identified. These included inter alia:

The institute’s vision clearly stated the importance of equity and its mission statement includes ‘…providing mass education on cross-cutting issues including health, HIV/AIDS, environment, civic education, poverty and gender through strengthened collaboration with national and international stakeholders

Universal Primary Education
In 1977, the government initiated a Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme, and required each village to build a primary school for the purpose of increasing enrollment for all children of 7 years of age. Of particular interest was the emphasis placed on monitoring both enrollment and attendance for girls. Village leaders were requested to report any households, which retained girls at home. In addition, among other requirements, even though it was met to differing degrees, was the provision of lunch for the pupils. UPE also focused on recruitment of female teachers with variable success.

Co-educational Community Secondary Schools
An outcome of UPE was increased enrollment in Primary schools. In response to the increased enrollment in Primary schools, and with reference to requirements of the Education Act No.25 of 1978, MoE had to increase the number of secondary schools early in the 1980s. To achieve this government initiated the concept of community and private secondary schools. During this intervention the girl child was given some consideration in that all newly build community schools were required either to be co-educational or girls` schools. In addition all boys` secondary schools were required to open up one stream for girls who lived near that school so that they could attend as day scholars.

Admission to A-level and Teacher Education Programmes
The enrollment of females at A-level programs and institutions of higher learning has been low compared to males. In recognition of this gender disparity in 1990 the entry points for

Advanced Certificate Secondary education (‘A’ Level) was lowered for girls in order to provide more opportunity for the girl child to attain higher educational status. Furthermore, fifty percent of available spaces in each intake group for teachers’ college programmes have been reserved for female students who meet admission requirements. Only when this quota is not filled are more males accepted. There are still more males than females who qualify for admission, especially to the diploma program.

Review of Gender Bias in Teaching Materials
The MoEC has established an Educational Material Approval Committee (EMAC), which is responsible for the review and approval of all teaching and learning materials, particularly textbooks and supplementary readers being used in the primary, secondary and teacher education programmes. One of the factors considered during the review is the extent to which the materials are free from gender bias.

Support Project for Economically Disadvantaged Girls
In 2000, the MoEC realized that there were a number of girls who failed to attend or complete secondary school because of financial difficulties to meet, particularly boarding secondary school requirements. In collaboration with the World Bank, MoEC established the Girls’ Support for Secondary Education (GSSE) project which operated from 2000 - 2005. The project gave an opportunity to girls from economically disadvantaged families to access secondary education and beyond to tertiary education programmes.

As is the case with so many projects when funding for GSSE was terminated the MoEVT was not able to absorb these costs into its on-going budget. Luckily however additional support is currently being provided by CAMFED, albeit on a more limited scale and the MoEVT is providing supervision and monitoring for the project.

Other Initiatives
Other programmes and actions have sought to enhance educational opportunities for girls and women. For example:

established Teachers Resource Centres (TRCs) in order to enhance capacity building for all teachers, especially the women, by bringing opportunities for academic and professional advancement for teachers closer to schools. In practice this has meant that many female teachers could participate while continuing to attend to home responsibilities.

Education and Training Policy (ETP) 1995
The Tanzanian Education and Training Policy (1995) identifies gender issues which are to be addressed. The overall objectives of ETP 1995 have been addressed through the sector-wide approach adopted in the Education Sector Development Plan (ESDP) to help the government achieve its objectives, among which are gender related policy items. Implementation of the ESDP is through the Primary Education Development Plan (PEDP) 2002 – 2006 and the Secondary Education Development Programme (SEDP) 2005-2010. The extent to which gender related issues listed in ETP (1995) have been addressed in the PEDP and SEDP remains an important concern.

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Consideration of Gender Issues in PEDP (2002-2006)
Several PEDP initiatives have worked towards improving primary education in the country and increasing access for boys and girls.

MoEC established the Cross-Cutting Issues Technical Working Group (CCITWG) as a fifth group to support PEDP implementation. It was mandated to address the three cross-cutting issues MoEC considered most crucial in for education, gender, HIV/AIDS and environment, and to take measures to ensure that they were mainstreamed across all areas of PEDP. The group is composed of the ministry coordinators responsible for the three cross-cutting issues, representatives from departments and institutes as well as development partners.

The CCITWG has undertaken a number of initiatives to address gender as well as the other CCIs. These have included:

Consideration of Gender Issues in SEDP (2004-2009)
The Secondary Education Development Plan (SEDP) 2004 – 2009 outlines the implementation of the ESDP at the secondary level. SEDP strategic areas which have addressed gender issues include:

improved access to Secondary schools for qualified Std. 7 leavers, especially girls. In January 2006, 70.88% of girls who passed the Standard VII were selected to Form 1 as compared to 59.51 boys.
construction of classrooms, toilets and private areas as well as and hostels for girls
improved teaching and learning through training teachers in gender responsive pedagogy as a strategy to improve girls’ retention and achievement

Under its cross-cutting issues strategy, SEDP has targeted to review curriculum to ensure adequate integration of content related to cross cutting issues by 2006, and to involve all students in both in– and out-of-classroom activities on HIV/AIDS, Environment and gender awareness by 2009.

SEDP has targeted to provide remedial classes for all under performing girls and to improve guidance and counseling services at all schools by 2007.
TUSEME, a programme to empower girls has incorporated into SEDP, with targets to mainstream the program in all secondary schools by 2009

Despite the initiatives identified in PEDP and SEDP, and reported progress there still has not been enough formal intervention to ensure that gender issues are fully institutionalized. There
continues to be a significant gender gap between primary and secondary school enrollment, particularly at the ‘A’ levels where fewer girls than boys continue to be enrolled, particularly in Science programmes. There also continues to be a gap in the number of female applicants for teacher education programmes despite affirmative action to redress this situation.

2.2 Gender Gaps in Enrollment and Completion of Primary and Secondary Levels

A critical issue to consider in the overall picture of the status of gender in MoEVT is the extent to which girls and boys are enrolling, and more importantly, completing both primary and secondary school.

Progress at Primary Level
At first glance the enrolment statistics provide a positive picture. However it is important to note that while there has been great overall improvement in primary enrollment, the seemingly narrow gender gap persists.

NER by sex and Gender Parity Index (GPI)

	males	females	total	GPI
1995	55.9	54.8	55.4	0.98
2006	96.8	95.4	96.1	0.99

There are consistently almost as many girls as boys enrolled at the primary level. However given that census figures suggest there are slightly more females than males in the country the gap is wider than it first appears.

Enrolment is however only the starting point. When we look at achievement it is clear that as students progress through the levels the gender gaps widen. There are no gender disaggregated statistics to allow comparisons with earlier years. However the 2005 Standard IV and VII results paint a clear picture. As girls get older fewer of them are in school and those who stay perform less well than their brothers. Furthermore fewer girls than boys who complete primary school successfully are selected to go on to secondary.

Achievement at Primary Level – 2005

	# who sat		% who passed
	males	females	males	females
Standard IV	630,602	611,608	88.49	87.25
Standard VII	253,361	240,585	68.58	54.58
Selected to Form 1	103,334	93,057	40.79	38.68

By Standard VII it is clear than fewer girls are completing primary school, those who do perform less well than the boys and of the girls who do pass fewer are selected to secondary.

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Improved Enrollment at Secondary Level

While there is improvement in overall secondary level enrolment, a similar pattern emerges and the gaps increase at higher levels. Fewer girls enter secondary and even fewer meet ultimate success.

Enrollment at Secondary Level

		male	female	total	Female as % of total
Form IV	2002	27,926	21,800	49,726	43.8
Form VI	2002	8,586	4,074	12,660	32.2
Form IV	2006	41,651	30,729	72,380	42.41
Form VI	2006	10,948	6,699	17,647	37.9

Progress in Achievement at Secondary Level

Some comparative data is available to show what is happening at the secondary level.
Again while there is an overall increase in the number of boys and girls sitting for exams, boys continue to outnumber and outperform the girls. An interesting point to note: while the number of girls exceeded boys in Form II in 2001, most of them did not persevere until Form VI. Unfortunately there are no disaggregated statistics to see how many of them even made it to Form VI.

		2001		2005
		male	female	male	female
Form II	# who sat	47,824	57.265	62,147	58,109
	% who passed	78.2	66.1	80.7	65.3
Form IV	# who sat	Total 48188		43,118	34,190
	% passed	77.3 (sex breakdown not available)		Ss school 96.1 coed school 91.2	Ss school 96.1 Coed school 85.3
		2002		2006
Form VI	# who sat	10,155	4845	17,488	9348
	% passed	71.3	52.2	69.7	50.1

It is important to note that the gender disaggregated education statistics now provide a much clearer picture of the relative achievement of boys and girls. The girls continue to lag behind the boys in both enrollment and achievement. Clearly a major aspect of addressing gender issues in MoEVT is to address this serious imbalance.

COBET and ICBAE Participation

More boys than girls participate in COBET programmes, with the gap increasing among the older learners. Girls in Cohort 1 represent 43.1% of the enrolled learners while in Cohort 2 only 37.8% are girls.

The situation is quite different in the ICBAE, where females outnumber males in all programs except those for individuals with special needs. Clear evidence that girls and women with disabilities are among the most marginalized members of society is reflected in the enrolment statistics, where only 36.1% of learners are female.

2.3 Gender, HIV/AIDS and Education

In recent years the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has had a devastating effect on the education system. Because women and girls are disproportionately affected by both susceptibility to infection and the burden of care and support for infected and affected family members, this new reality must be taken into account in the consideration of gender issues in MoEVT. The statistics on orphans in the schools reported in 2006 reflect this new reality.

Enrolment of Orphans Reported 2006

level	boys	girls
primary	360,239	325,999
secondary	34,462	29,673

While all the children identified as orphans have not been rendered parentless by AIDS, nevertheless the pandemic plays a significant role. What is particularly important to note is that even in this disadvantaged group fewer girls than boys are in school. There are currently no statistics available to demonstrate how attendance is influenced by AIDS-related factors, but anecdotal information from recent qualitative research indicates that girls and women are significantly more likely to be absent frequently as they assume the extra responsibility of care for sick family members.

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Readiness of MOEVT to Mainstream Gender

Important groundwork is in place. Using the stages of mainstreaming as a framework, it is clear that some parts of MoEVT headquarters have already moved through stage one and on to the next stages. The challenge is to continue this process and to extend it across districts and to schools and communities across the nation.

As already pointed out in 2002 PEDP established the Cross-Cutting Issues Technical Working Group (CCITWG) as part of its implementation process. This group was mandated to support mainstreaming of three particular cross-cutting issues (CCIs) across PEDP, namely gender, HIV/AIDS and environment. In actual fact most of the work of the CCITWG has gone beyond primary education. Initiatives of the CCITWG have supported MoEVT’s response to mainstreaming gender equality. These have included:

Gender awareness workshops for senior management at national, regional and district level
Development of Guidelines and Checklists for Mainstreaming Cross-Cutting Issues
Development and dissemination of Shule Rafiki Kijinsia, a resource manual to enable primary teachers to make their teaching gender responsive
Development of a Guidance and Counselling Guide for Schools and Colleges
First steps towards mainstreaming gender responsive pedagogy in primary, secondary, teacher education and COBET programmes.

The CCITWG has also ensured that initiatives directed towards the other CCIs in its mandate also address gender issues.

Other MoEVT initiatives which set the stage towards the achievement of gender equality include:

establishment of a Gender Desk, including the appointment of a Gender Focal Person and gender representatives from every department , institution and unit to form the MoEVT Technical Gender Committee
the gender desk received training on gender issues as per needs assessment.
gender mainstreaming training sessions for several MoEVT departments and institutes including Policy and Planning, Teacher Education, Primary and Secondary Education ,Inspectorate and Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE)
training in gender budgeting undertaken by the Department of Policy and Planning and budget officers from other departments
Gender sensitization for MoEVT Head Quarter`s Teacher Education, Primary and Secondary Education Staff members to mainstream gender issues and gender responsive pedagogy in both pre and in-service training programmes.
Gender sensitization for staff members of the Institutes of Education and Adult Education.
The development of this Strategic Plan for Gender which has involved all departments, institutes and units and has elicited input from other stakeholders.
Development of Shule Rafiki Kijinsia - The Gender-Friendly School (2005) A guide for primary school teachers). It has been distributed to all primary schools through the DEOs.
Development of modules for Teacher Education and District Education Officers and headteachers to integrate Shule Rafiki Kijinsia into their respective areas (2007)
Development of Instrument for Mainstreaming Gender into the Curriculum (2007). This has been done by TIE as an output after the gender training workshop.
Development of this web page for gender on MoEVT website.
Development of series of posters to raise awareness at the grass-roots level of the importance of gender-responsive pedagogy.
Obtaining a column in the MoEVT Newsletter for provision of Gender Concerns to the readers.

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