Are our children learning? What about parents?

Today, ironically a day after Tanzania received an award for ‘better achievements in implementing the Millennium Development Goal on education’,[1] I attended the launch of Uwezo’s report 'Are Our Children Learning? Annual Learning Assessment Report - Tanzania 2010'. The report is available at uwezo.net.[2]

Expectedly, its statistics are glaringly saddening - as all 'factual' educational statistics in the country are. For instance, it was found out that whereas ‘all children in Standard 3 should be able to read at the Standard 2 story level, less than 1 in 3 (32.7%) can’.[3] The situation remains pathetic at Standard 7: ‘By the time they complete primary school, however, 1 out of every 5 children cannot read the Standard 2 level story’.[4] Mind you, a total of 42,033 children in 22,800 households were assessed across 30 randomly selected villages per district in 38 districts.

The situation is also drastic when it comes to English. The study found that ‘less than 1 in 10 (7.7%)’ children in Standard 3 can read a Standard 2 level story’.[5] Worse, ‘by the time they complete primary school, half of all the children (49.1%) cannot read a Standard 2 level English story’.[6] We are talking here of a very basic English paragraph. In fact, a collection of simple sentences, as one of the participants at the launch, Dr. Martha Qorro, highlighted.

Lest one argue (as one participant somehow argued) that the difference between Kiswahili and English comprehension in the study findings is very small and so, by inference, the call for teaching in Kiswahili as a medium of instruction is unfounded, it is important to stress Qorro's sharp observation. The paragraph and story the children were required to read in Kiswahili, though at a Standard 2 level, was relatively much harder as those they were required to read at the same level in English. Upon probing, we were told that teaching experts thought that if a more complex, albeit Standard 2 level, story and paragraph were given to the children it would be impossible for them to read let alone comprehend it and, presumably, the researchers thought this would be impractical for the purposes of comparative assessment of levels.

What does all this mean as far as the Language of Instruction (LOI) in Tanzania is concerned? It simply means that if the students had been asked to read a relatively equally complex paragraph and story in English they would have 'failed' miserably compared to the way they performed in Kiswahili. Thus, it is still important to factor in LOI if we truly want to make our children learn and thus improve the glaringly pathetic quality of education in Tanzania.

Nevertheless, taken independently, these scores in Kiswahili and English comprehension remind us that our education system as far as learning outcomes are concerned is not working. Another of the report’s findings paints the same dim picture: ‘Only 7 in 10 primary school leavers can do Standard 2 level mathematics’.[7] It is in this regard that the following observation and conclusion from the report are so timely:

‘At present, in Tanzania and elsewhere, much of the focus is on provision of educational inputs, such as classrooms, laboratories, books and teachers, rather than learning outcomes, such as literacy, numeracy, writing, critical thinking and creativity. Since the evidence shows that the inputs are not being translated into learning outcomes, there is a need to realign focus-wide on achieving learning outcomes within ministries responsible for education, training institutions, curriculum development, institutions, curriculum development, examinations, teachers and schools assessment, measures of progress, and political commitments.’[8]

My question is: Have the inputs failed us or have we failed them? If teachers are indeed 'inputs' have we surely prepared and deployed teachers who can really teach? Or are we still 'inputting' teachers who are reflections of the 'outcome' of the picture above? In fact, as one of the participants at the report launch said, it would be very interesting to assess teachers by using these same tests that were used on the children. We may find similar results like those that happened when certain teachers were asked somewhere to do the national examinations that they were meant to mark.

Nonetheless, I totally agree with the report that ’instead of doing more of what has been done harder or faster it may be time to do something different’[9]. As for me, something different would be to capitalise on one of the findings of the studies: that children with educated mothers tend to perform better and more dramatically when that parent has attended secondary school. In fact, the report found that ‘in Standard 3 and 4 these children are five times more likely to be able to read a story in English and more than twice as likely to be able to multiply and read a story in Kiswahili.’[10] These findings show why the following point about the role of higher education that was stressed recently by Prof. Mahmood Mamdani is so pertinent:

‘The whole process [of declining university standards] was set into motion in the early 1990s when the Government succumbed to the pressure of the World Bank to cut funds to the university so as to increase funding for primary education. What the Government and the World Bank forgot was that you cannot expand the primary education sector without expanding university education because you need university products in building a strong UPE (Universal Primary Education). The policy itself was wrong...You cannot have a successful UPE without a strong university system. Their policy was wrong because they assumed that you could let a university system collapse and it would not affect the primary system or secondary system or even the economy and other sectors. A university is like a power generating plant, generating intellectual power which feeds all sectors of the country including industries, businesses, education, health and indeed all other sectors.’[11]

Indeed, we need to educate parents since their education trickles down to their children. The current national rate of adult illiteracy is too shameful - a far cry from the rate we had in the heydays of Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere's rallies for adult education. As Salma Moulidi alerted us elsewhere, literacy has risen from about ten per cent to above 30 per cent in a generation. If parents are such an important educational ‘input’ to the extent that even ‘children whose mothers have attended only primary school seem to have a small but significant advantage above children whose mothers have not been in school’,[12] we ought to invest heavily and urgently in their (yes, our) education. It is in this regard that I commend the report for considering ‘possibly even parents’ [13] in their recommendations which state:

‘Our analysis and studies worldwide suggest that a core part of the puzzle may be to realign incentives - so that key actors system-wide are recognised for promoting learning’.[14]

Let our parents learn. That way our children will and shall learn. After all, teachers are parents.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Chambi Chachage is an independent researcher, newspaper columnist and policy analyst based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
* This article was originally published by Udadisi: Rethinking in Action
* © Chambi Chachage
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] The Citizen (2010) ‘Tanzania drive to improve education lauded’, 21 September
[2] Uwezo is a four-year initiative that aims to improve numeracy and literacy among children aged 5-16 in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
[3] Uwezo (2010) ‘Are Our Children Learning? Annual Learning Assessment Report - Tanzania 2010’, p. 1
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid, p. 3
[8] Ibid, p. 45
[9] Ibid, p. 46
[10] Ibid, p. 5
[11], Sunday Vision (2010) ‘Commercialisation is killing Makerere’, 21 August
[12] Uwezo (2010) ‘Are Our Children Learning? Annual Learning Assessment Report - Tanzania 2010’, p. 5
[13] Ibid, p. 46
[14] Ibid