Part II – Analytical Section

7.0Progress toward goals and targets

7.1 Early Childhood Care, Education and Development (ECCED)

Pre-school education in Zanzibar is not compulsory and those who attend these schools pay fee. The amount of fee varies according to the location of the schools with urban location paying a bit higher than the rural pre-schools. Prior to 1993, the official entry age for this level was 3-5 years. However, the revision of education policy in 1992 changed the entry age to 4-6 years.

So far, the MoE has constructed 22 government owned pre-schools, which are distributed in all the districts. These pre-schools are supposed to serve as models for the communities to emulate when they want to start their own schools. Some of these schools use the secular pre-schools curriculum, while others use both religious and secular curricula. Class sizes are often large (about 45 children per class). Most teachers in these schools are the holders of primary school teaching certificate who have attended a short term training on pre-school methodology.

Since the re-introduction of private schools by the education sector in 1992, a total of 72 registered private pre-schools have been established. Communities, religious organisations, the Tanzania Parents Association and individuals have established these schools. The distribution of ECE centres is as follows:-

7.1.1.1 Distribution of registered ECCED centres by districts, 1999

As can be seen from the table, there is very high concentration of private registered pre-schools in the Urban and West district. On the other hand, North ‘A’ and Micheweni districts have no registered private schools. The factors which lead to this contrast is that while in the Urban and West districts most people are civil servants or employed in other sectors which make them earn more, those in North ‘A’ and Micheweni districts are poor and even have little awareness on the importance of ECE.

Interventions

The MoE, Zanzibar took various measures to ensure that the Education for All goals is realised. Programmes were devised which aimed at accelerating efforts to address the basic learning needs of this age bracket by the year 2000.

In 1992, MoE in collaboration with UNICEF launched Child Survival, Protection and Development Programme. The programme targeted to improve the welfare of young children and women by implementing various projects. Among them are the community based early childhood care, education and development. The project aimed at establishing improved capabilities and management of early childhood care, education and development at community, district and national levels in such away that Zanzibar would be able to reach the goals of education for all by the year 2000. At community level, the strategy mainly involved a community-based approach, which promoted community participation, management and support to ECD activities. At the national level, the strategy aim at improving quality by reviewing the technical aspects of ECD through curriculum renewal, teacher training and development and production of teaching and learning materials. This programme which fall under the umbrella of the GOZ/UNICEF lead to the opening of many ECE centres, especially in the rural areas. The parents realised that the centres could serve double purposes that of providing custodial care for their children while they are working and socialising and provision of education to their children. The programme also supported studies in the areas of early childhood development.

The promotion of Madrasa pre-school by the Aga Khan foundation in 1989 was a real boast to provision of ECE in Zanzibar. Communities were mobilised and supported to establish community owned and managed pre-schools.

These pre-schools use integrated Islamic religious and secular education curriculum. Teachers are identified among the girls in the community who have completed lower secondary education. The training is provided at the Madrasa Resource Centre. Unlike in the government owned pre-schools, teachers in the community pre-schools are paid honoraria from the collection of school fee. These schools have become popular among the community to an extent that its number keeps on increasing quite rapidly. At present there are 45 such schools, which make 62.5% of all the 72 registered private pre-schools.

Another actor in the provision of ECE is the Tanzania Parents Association (TAPA). Most of the pre-schools owned by this organisation are unregistered although they are in almost every district. The official statistics therefore do not cover most of these schools. Teachers in these schools are untrained and the play materials in these schools are scarce.

Individuals and other organisations too have opened pre-schools in Zanzibar. In most cases, these schools design their own curricular and most use English for classroom instruction contrary to others where Kiswahili, the National language is preferred.

7.1.1.1Pre-School Growth Trends

The number of registered institutions offering pre-school education has increased from 18 in 1990 to 94 in 1999. The increase in number of pre schools emanated from the 1991 education policy which promoted and encouraged the establishment of either community owned or private pre-schools. Each year the numbers of private pre-schools have been increasing. While only 4 private pre-schools existed in 1992 the number had risen to 72 by 1999.

There has been a tremendous expansion of pre-schools education between 1993 and 1999. In 1993, there were 23 registered pre-schools (18 public and 5 private) operating, with an enrollment of 4271 children with a GER of 4.9%. By 1999, the enrolment has reached 11036 children with a GER of 11.4%.

Table below indicates the number of pre-school enrollment and GER trends from 1990 to 1999.

7.1.1.1 Number of registered pre-schools, enrollment and GER trends, 1990-1999

*Official age range for pre-school education was 3 to 5 years

NA – Data are not available.

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

The increase in number of the registered private pre-schools is an indication of the community commitment in increasing access to pre-school education. It also highlight the fact that communities have seen the importance of having their schools registered, because the children coming from the registered pre-school are given priority to enroll in grade one. At a place where not all children registered to join standard one get a place, the pre-school owners therefore strive to reach the standards so as to secure registration of their pre-schools.

As stated earlier, the figures given are for the registered pre-schools only which does not cover the many unregistered pre-schools and Quranic schools which offer early childhood education. These figures therefore, do not give the real coverage of pre-school enrollment.

According to the recent survey conducted, in 1998, there were 186 unregistered pre-schools with a total enrollment of 11,280 children out of which 5,934 are girls. These pre schools have not fulfilled the conditions of registration such as adequate classrooms, toilet facilities, safety standards, play ground, trained teachers etc. by far exceed the number of registered pre-schools and therefore enroll more children then the former group.

The survey also revealed the existence of 1902 Quranic Schools enrolling 200,111 children out of which 62, 294 are not attending any formal school. These children which most of them are presumably aged 5-7 years are receiving their ECCED only in Quranic Schools.

MoE has been considering ways of incorporating the Quranic Schools in the formal pre-school system. This can be seen in the ZEMAP 1996-2006, which stipulates that the government aims at expanding early childhood education, care and development so that it becomes a basic service for all children in the country. The target is to attain a pre-school GER of 100% by the year 2006 of the 4-6 age group population counting also those enrolled in Quranic Schools. This target therefore will address the issue of exact coverage and enrollment in pre-school education. The survey has provided a clear picture of the situation of ECCED in Zanzibar.

7.1.1.2Evolution of the GER in ECCED by Gender

Generally, enrollment in ECCED has been growing steadily as shown in the table below. The slight increase in GER from (3.2%) in 1992 to (4.9%) 1993 is due to the change of entry age from 3-5 years in 1992 to 4-6 years in 1993 emanating from the revision of education policy in 1992. The leap in GER can also be noticed between 1997 (6.2%) and 1999 (11.4%). The increase in GER was the result of opening of community pre school madrasa.

Gender disparities are not so pronounced although enrollment of girls is slightly higher than that of boys.

Evolution of the gross enrollment ratio in ECCED by gender

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

7.1.2 Enrolment in pre-schools by district

aa districts with exception of Micheweni district has recorded a great expansion in enrolment of pupils at registered pre-schools. Micheweni district is the only district without private pre-schools and the enrolment has declined from 129 children in 1990 to 105 children in 1999.

In general all the establishment of private pre-schools came later, but the proportion of children attending private pre-schools is higher than those in public ones. This is due to deliberate policy of MoE to encourage the involvement of private and community in running and managing pre-schools.

Number of pupils enrolled in ECE by district and type of institution

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

Further examination of the table, indicates that private pre-schools are not available in Micheweni and North ‘A’ districts, however, the 1998 survey had found out these two districts had high enrolment of pre-school age children in Quranic schools; 21,384 and 22,459 respectively. The reason for low enrollment in the formal pre-schools is the cultural and religious influence, which make people to prefer sending their children at lower age in religious institutions rather than western type schools.

The highest annual enrollment growth is found in West and Central districts. The number of registered private pre-schools in North ‘B’ district have increased from nil in 1990, to 3 in 1998.

Primary grades 1 pupils with ECD experience. In 1990, out of 21,711 children who joined primary grades I, only 727 children (3.3%) had passed through ECD centres. The data include both over age and under age children as by that time parents liked to leave their children in pre-schools for a long time before they let them join primary schools while the official age was six. In some pre schools, especially in rural areas enroll under age and over age children and has resulted to some children joining standard one class before attaining the age of six. By 1998, 5.8% of all the children who joined primary grade I had passed through ECD centres. The number of children joining primary schools with ECD experience from registered pre schools is still very low. This is a result of having limited number of pre-schools in Zanzibar. Urban (21.5%) and South (7.1%) districts has the percentage enrolment above the national average. The table below has the details.

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

The percentage of children with pre-school experience is low due to the fact that access to formal pre-school is limited and the data covers only children entering public primary schools. The number of pupils who join standard one in private primary schools who have had pre-school experience is not known. Also, the tendency of not having official statistics for the unregistered pre-schools makes it difficult to have the exact data of pupils with ECD experience. For example, in the 1998 survey, while GER for the registered pre-school was 8.7%, the figure rose to 20.6% when the children from the unregistered pre-schools were added. The figures soared even higher to 86.2% when those attending Quranic Schools were calculated. Even though this is not the exact figure, as the age of those in Quranic Schools were not properly worked out, yet this is a clear indication of how important it is for the.

Apparent Intake Rate

7.2.1.1Evolution of Apparent Intake Rate (AIR) at primary education level by Gender 1990-1997

Official entry age was 6 years.

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

The AIR trends show that throughout the decade the system was incapable of enrolling of all school age children. In most places was due to shortage of places. Between 1990 and 1994, the AIR was fluctuating from 93.8% to 90.9% respectively, before rising again in 1995. A significant increase was recorded in 1997 due to the increase number of new classrooms and MoE decisions to exceed the class size benchmark especially in urban areas.

The proportion of girls joining primary 1 has also being fluctuating, between 1990 and 1994. However, the AIR of girls has generally increase from 86.3% in 1990 to 92% in 1997. The increase has brought a slight minimise the gender parity.

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

Wide disparities in AIR can be observed across districts. Only 5 districts had attained AIR above the national average between 1990 and 1997. Although, West district has attained the highest AIR in both periods but its AIR has decreased from 179.9% in 1990 to 161.4% in 1997. One feature peculiar of west district is five of its primary schools enrol most of its pupil from Urban district as the schools lies on the border with Urban district. Hence although it has the highest AIR but the proportion include a significant number of children from Urban district. It is only North "A" district with a significant increase in AIR from 65% in 1990 to 101% in 1997. In contrast, Micheweni district had the attained the lowest increase in AIR from the 62.7% in 1990 to 66.1% in 1997. However, the AIR for girls has increased from 51.9% in 1990 to 61.3% in 1997 while the AIR for boys has declined. The increase in girl’s AIR may be the result of increase awareness of some parents on the importance of girl’s education.

7.2.2. Net Intake Rate

*Change of school entrance age from 6 years to 7 years.

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

 Net intake rate (NIR) decreased from 2.7% in 1990 to 2.5% in 1992 when the entrance age was 6 years. Also, net intake rate of 19.9% in 1993 dropped to 16.5% in 1994, then rose to 23.5% in 1995. It then dropped continuously to 19.8% in 1997. Net intake rates for male and female are nearly the same except in the year 1995 where male rate is higher by a difference of 4% compared to that of female intake rate. The NIR show that the capacity of the system to enrol children at the right age is low although it has shown a remarkable increase with time. Partly is due to the increase of standard 1 pupils coming from the nursery schools. It was only in 1990 and 1995 that the NER of girl’s was higher than that of boy’s.

*Data are not available

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

The net intake rate (NIR) trend has shown remarkable variation between districts. In general all districts has shown a considerable improvement in NIR between 1990 and 1997. The highest rate is in West district (15.4%) in 1990 and (43.2) in1997 and the lowest in Micheweni district (1.0%) in 1990 and (9.8%) in 1997. Although, West district has attained the highest NIR but 5 of its schools which lies on the border with urban district, enrol most of its pupils from Urban district.

3. Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER)

* Official age range for primary education was 6 – 13 years

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

Enrolment trend at primary education level, depicts the gradual enrolment increase over the years, with the enrollment of boys being slightly higher than that of girls. However, the change of entry age in 1993 has accelerated the enrolment. Although the parity index indicate disparities in favour of boys but the gap has slightly narrowed as years goes on.

* Official age range for basic education level was 6- 16 years.

Source: Ministry of Education, Zanzibar

Like n primary education level, enrolment at this level has been increasing gradually, with boys enrolment outpace that of girls. The major increase in enrolment is between 1996 and 1999. However, the disparity that originated from primary education level has been slightly bridged. The table also gives indication that at this level the survival rate of girls is higher than that of boys.