The Space Of Politics In Tanzania S Curriculum

Scholarly J. Sci. Res. and Essay112Figure 2. Three sources of these educational objectivessieve become to be the overall instructional objectives forinstance, in geography, Kiswahili, Civics and manyothers.Tyler referred to educational purposes as “goals”,“educational ends” and behavioural objectives. However,the students themselves involvement in curriculumdevelopment in Tanzania leaves much to be desired. It’sobserved that, in Tanzania students participation is amyth in setting educational objectives.Society as source: According to Tyler, the analysedobjectives are matters of choice, and they must thereforebe the considered values judgements of thoseresponsible for the school. The progressive school looksat the child to determine the interest she has, whatproblems she encounters and what purposes she has inmind. The progressive see such of information to be vitalin selecting objectives.However, this method is criticised that if you use acontemporary society only you might not be consideringthe future and longer objectives. However, it has beenargued that, there is what we call curriculum change inorder to meet the demands of a particular time.In Tanzania, a variety of institutional needs has beencatered for parents through school committee suggestingthe learning objectives and thus influencing curriculumdevelopment. For instance, parents called for theinclusion of the vocational training skills in the primaryschool curriculum. This is a landmark of how thesociety s need of learning by doing has come to beincorporated the curriculum objectives.Moreover, religious groups as well have influenced thecurriculum through calling for the teaching of religionsubject in primary and secondary schools. Christianityand Islamic subjects are taught though, optional but it is asignificant influence in the learning process of children.Therefore, at secondary school level, Christian studentswrite an exam on Bible Knowledge and Muslim studentsdo write an exam related to that sect and these examsare under National Examination Council of Tanzania(NECTA). Therefore, religious institutions are amongothers a part of society whose contribution to curriculumis noticed. The curriculum worker must be having asociological element of understanding his/her societyproblems and needs in order to be able to set educationalobjectives.The third source of educational objectives matter/specialist/experts. Many of the curricula are a product ofthe experts’ opinion in the area. This covers the marketdemands. Experts in the subject have wider attributesand knowledge on what labour market requires. InTanzania, there has been an introduction ofentrepreneurship on the curriculum of learning level.Another best example of experts on the curriculumdevelopment in Tanzania is when the politician (Ministerof education Mr. Joseph Mungai removed some subjectsfrom the Form IV curriculum while combining physics andchemistry to be studied as single subject. Teacherssigned a petition opposing for ministers decision andfinally, the minister s decision was to be revoked. Hence,this has had an influence on the curriculum development.Moreover, these objectives in Tanzania are developedand harmonized by the Tanzania Institute ofEducation(TIE) but the organ responsible for the nationalcurriculum (Wiles,J and Bondi,J.1984) argue thatcurriculum specialist consider sequence, pre-requisites,academic achievement and mastery.PoliticsThe term politics is generally used to refer to thoseactivities that revolve around the decision-making organsof the state and involves the related concepts of power,authority, command and control.Some political scientistsextend politics to cover any activity at all levels of humanrelationships, which involves power and authority. Theyargue that conflict is an indispensable characteristic ofany human relationship and when conflicts are resolvedand the solution imposed with power and authority, theactivity becomes political. Hence, politics exists in tradeunions, families, corporations, schools etc. By far, everyperson in society seems to engage in politics but someindividuals are more directly involved in political activitiesthan others are, hence they are called political actors e.g.politicians etc.According to Alan C. Isaak (1981), political power canbe exercised through the Persuasion,the Offering ofrewards,the threat of punishment andthe use of force andcommand from those with authority. The subject initiatesor discusses a proposal with a victim with a view ofconvincing him of the correctness of his/her viewpoint.Thus, politics revolves around power and every segmentof society engages in politics of curriculum from a wider

Nkyabonaki113perspective. Politics engulf issues of who will get what,how and when. This power dimension is crucial whenconsidering a pathology of curriculum at all stages.General Factors that influence the curriculumMaking of curriculum has to consider social factors suchas religion, culture and view of various groupings insociety, including professional associations. The aim is totape all expectations of the society. Social factorsinfluence the selection and interpretation of resourcesand influence the hiring of personnel. Some course can’tbe if are against religious and cultural values of thesociety. Likewise religious course have been introducedin curriculum like Bible knowledge for Christians andQuran for Muslims.Economic factors influence on the goals, content andlearning experiences for they influence materialproduction, standards of academic attainment. Forexample, the market forces dictate what should beincluded in the national curriculum. It also deviouslydetermines the quantity of learners at different levels. Theeconomic demands can be seen on the numbers ofclassroom supplies such as: textbooks, charts,equipment, and chemicals for science experiments needby teachers.Without these materials, learning iscompromised. That is why serious considerations aregiven to economic demands when designing thecurriculum.Technological factors also influence on the goals,content and learning experiences for they influencematerial production, standards of academic attainment.The innovation of computer has pressed higher demandsfor use in education system and society in particular. Ifone is not computer literate, he/she may feel that is notup-to-date. With this innovation many schools haveintroduced computing as one of the subjects to equip thelearners with the requisite computer skills andknowledge.Environmental factors exert influence on the goals,content and learning experiences and materialproduction. Over time, people have become insensitive totheir surroundings and natural resources. This hasaffected the sky, the land and the sea. The result is thathumanity is being adversely affected by these inconsiderations. Industrial wastes have polluted the world.For example, the ozone layer in the atmosphere, whichprotects us from harmful radiation from the sun, is beingdepleted. People want this redressed. It is deration for the environment must be of necessityto influence curriculum design to ensure the survival offuture generations.The political activity is able to influence the curriculumabove other factors of economics and socio-culturalfactors. The political domain is considered to influencecurriculum through the power of public policy on educationand training. Moreover, the state engagement in fundingand supporting education system and its capacity toconstitute various committees in education sectorlubricate the activities of politics in a curriculum. For mostof the time, politics has become a factor with a full gear ininfluencing curriculum from time to time. The reality ofsuch claims will be here examined.Curriculum is a political functionThe right to education is stipulated under Article 11 of theConstitution of Tanzania as one of the fundamentalobjectives and principles that the State has to endeavourto ensure that every person enjoysit. The Article provides inter alia that:(i)The state authority shall make appropriate provisionsfor realization of the right to work, to self-education.(ii) Every person has the right to self-education and everycitizen shall be free to pursue education in a field ofhis/her choice up to the highest level according to his/hermerits and ability.(iii) The Government shall endeavour to ensure that thereare equal and adequate opportunities to all persons toenable them to acquire education and vocational trainingat all levels of schools and other institutions of learning”.In Tanzania, apart from the Constitution, the Parliamenthas enacted the National Education Act to specificallydeal with education issues in the country. It has alsopassed the Education and Training Policy to givedirectives on how education issues should be handled tofacilitate access to education. In addition, there are thedual strategies meant to ensure compulsory primaryeducation and improve secondary education. This isevidenced by the adoption of specific plans for primaryand secondary education namely: Primary EducationDevelopment Plan (PEDP), MEMKWA and SecondaryEducation Development Plan (SEDP) under the amme (ESDP).Under these Plans, it was projected to enrol more than7.5 million school children in primary school by 2006, and2 million students in secondary schools by 2010. ThePrimary Education Development Plan (PEDP) and theSecondary Education Development Plan (SEDP) havebrought remarkable improvements in the educationsector. New classes and schools have been constructedunder the programmes and the enrolment level in primaryand secondary schools has increased. For instance,primary school enrolment rose from 84.4 percent in 2006to 112.7 percent in 2007. The number of studentspassing their primary school examination has alsoincreased. The increase of the number of enrolment inprimary and secondary schools is also supported by theopinion survey tool, which indicates that about 47 percent of the interviewed said they are enjoying the right to

Scholarly J. Sci. Res. and Essayeducation, 41 percent confirmed moderate enjoymentand only 11 percent said they do not enjoy at all.In areasof managing the education system, politics has become adriving force sidelining professionalism and thusunintentionally have caused some dilemmas as the paperstipulates.Access to education is political activity.Due to the country s motive of meeting the MDGs goalstranslated in MKUKUTA and Tanzania Vision 2025 madethe government embark on PEDP and SEDP. These twoplans have increased enrolment of learners. Forinstance,on average, the student -teacher ratio presentlystands at 1:88.The study by Tamasha shows that in eightout of 13 secondary schools the student-teacher ratiowas higher than 50. It was higher than 100 in four of the13 schools. In Musoma and Temeke the ratios are sohigh it is difficult to see how learning can take place.However, the setbacks are acute shortage of qualifiedteachers, teaching and learning materials coupled withpoor learning environments. This has led the governmentto make a rapid decision of training teachers under acrash program of 2 months. These teachers are calledLicence teachers unlike the teachers who sailed througha normal training system. Hence, politics influencesparents through showing the public that they areendeavouring to increase quality education while thecontrary would be true.Budgetary allocationspolitical activitytoeducationsectorarePolitics has the dimension of allocating public resourceswhen defined as “who gets what when and how? “Theresource allocation function is done through thebudgetary processes submitted by the government to theparliament. The experience in Tanzania has been thatfinancial allocation to education sector seemed to havehad a lion s share in the budget. In 2008/09, educationreceived 19.7 per cent of the total budget, while in2009/10 it received 18.3 per cent, both proportions whichnear the international best practice of allocating 20 percent of national budgets to education. Likewise, the vastmajority of that expenditure is typically directed towardchildren, with primary education receiving 90 per cent oftotal education expenditures in the 2008 financial year.There are, however, several allocation problems. Forexample, while the education budget increased fromSh1.1 trillion in 2007/08 to Sh1.4 trillion in 2008/09, thecapitation grant the primary fund for procuring textbooks,notebooks, pens, and chalk among other things was cutfrom Sh53.5 million to Sh45.5 million. Similarly, despite agrowing budget for the Primary Education DevelopmentPlan (PEDP), actual development funds under PEDP aresmaller and smaller each year. Development fundsmoney used for the construction of classrooms, teachers114houses, toilets and more averaged Sh109 billion per yearduring PEDP I (2002-2006) but are only averaging Sh14billion during PEDP II (2007-2011), meaning PEDPdevelopment funds are only 13 per cent of what theyused to be. For example, whereas 10,771 classroomswere built in 2003, only 1,263 were built in 2008 eventhough the overall PEDP budget in 2008 was higher thanthat of 2003, in real terms. It is not that new classroomswere not needed; the classroom pupil ratio in 2008 was1:78, almost twice the national target of 1:40. Rather, dueto ineffective budget allocations, PEDP II has become a“development programme” without development.Moreover, according to the Public Expenditure TrackingSurvey (PETS) for Primary and Secondary Education inMainland Tanzania, a survey commissioned in part by theMinistry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT)and released earlier this year, Sh28.9 billion of educationsector grants transferred to councils was spent in othernon-education sectors in 2007/08. In the 32 councils thatwere doing this, it meant that almost a quarter of thefunds they received for education were not spent oneducation.Meanwhile, another Sh11.8 billion in education grantswas not spent at all by councils. That’s a total of Sh40.7billion in education funds that never even reached theeducation sector. The problem here is such politicalarrangement, which does not consider local politics andcapacity to effectively disburse allocated resources.Quality of curriculum implementation as a function ofpoliticsPerhaps the greatest factor in the quality of education ofour children is the quality of their teachers, but due toskyrocketing enrolment and shortened pre-servicetraining, teachers are having a harder time than ever. Toaddress this, the Ministry of Education and VocationalTraining introduced the Teacher Development andManagement Strategy (TDMS) in 2008 to ensure theadequate recruitment and training of teachers in all levelsof education. This affected much the implementation ofcurriculum at the classroom level, as those shortly trainedindividuals have no adequate knowledge on thefoundations of curriculum principles and educationpsychology of learners. The net result of such politics hasbeen the subsequent failure in national form IVexamination results with a special mention of 2010results. Hence, curriculum holistically remains a functionof political activity in that realm.Curriculum objectives evaluation is a function ofpolitical activityEvaluation of learning objectives is centralized. Accordingto Marsh (1995), the teaching is done by teachers inschools but the assessment is done by the ministry of

Nkyabonaki115education and the results announced by the politician(Minister responsible for Education) The politics here canbe seen in areas of two screening examinations forexample. This exam has been abolished in early 1990sand later it was reinstituted. This was done without theconsultation of teachers who are experts. Hence,curriculum is being placed at the heart of politics. In thesame light of argument, the teachers who are experts arenot given enough room to underscore the reasons forfailure in the national examinations such as PrimarySchool Leaving Examination and Secondary SchoolLeaving Certificate as politicians take a toll of the debateand tend to politicize. The testimonial given by ProfessorNjabili in TBC One weekly programme-This Week inPerspective was catching the heart and minds of expertsas she looked at the massive Form four failures as aresult of political upper hand in the designing andevaluation of curriculum.socialism and self-reliance. However, with themarketization of the economy and increased influence ofglobalization the curriculum now inclines to the agendasof politics, which is to cherish the market model. Underthe market model, we have the survival of the fittest,which is an order of politics of the day. The one who isable to influence others gets his/her agenda registered.This has made the donors dictate the nature of subjectsto be added in primary schools and one of those isReproductive Health, which has been, receivedambivalently by most parents. The problem here is powerrelations because the donors play their politics torecipient countries and thus no choice rather thanaccommodating those pressures in their curriculum.Hence, here curriculum is an activity of internationalpolitics. Our local politicians would not be interested, dueto under-funding; this programme is struggling to beimplemented.Curriculum planning and subjects choice as afunction of politicsCurriculum language of Instruction as a function ofpoliticsThere are group politics of whose dominant views shouldbe registered in the curriculum that is the contents ofvarious subjects. Above all, the politicians would as wellassume the higher responsibility of influencing curriculumlike it was in Tanzania, that Chemistry was combined withbiology by a politician in 2000s. This led to a seriousimplementation of the curriculum at the classroom level.Moreover, there was also the abolition of some subjectsfrom the curriculum such as commerce and agriculture bythe politicians. The reason put forth was that, learnerswould me

System in Tanzania that constitutes 2 years of pre-primary education, 7 years of primary education, 4 years of Junior Secondary (ordinary Level), 2 years of Senior Secondary (Advanced Level) and up to 3 or more years of Tertiary Education. Specifically, the education system has th