TANZANIA GOVT. ANNOUNCED PLANNED COMPLETION OF SCHOOL INFRASTRUCTURE ACROSS THE NATION

Tanzania’s government has completed the necessary preparations for schools’ infrastructure to accommodate all standard seven leavers selected to join secondary schools for the 2024 academic year, President Samia Suluhu Hassan has said.

“The government has already completed the preparations for infrastructure to accommodate all students who will be selected to join Form One in the 2024 academic year,” President Samia said through her verified post on the X platform and Instagram accounts.

The Head of State issued the statement while wishing the best of luck to Standard Seven pupils across the country who started their final examinations yesterday.

“I wish the best of luck to all Standard Seven pupils who are starting their final exams today (yesterday). You have reached an important stage of your journey, towards the paths you will choose in the near future in making your contribution to push forward our nation’s development,” she said.

Dr Samia added, “I pray for you to Allah who has taken care of you from the beginning of this education journey so far, May God grant you peace and good health so that you can do well in your exams.”

According to the National Examination Council of Tanzania, a total of 1,397,370 pupils across the country are sitting for the 2-day Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) from on Wednesday.

The government has been making major reforms in education sector, which among others include providing fee free education from pre-primary school to Advanced Level of secondary education, recruiting a big number of teachers as well as reviewing the education policy of 2014 and curriculum.

During the implementation of Second Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP-II), the government increased the number of secondary schools’ classrooms from 115,665 in 2015 to 136,292 in 2020.

The number of secondary schools increased from 4,708 in 2015 to 5,402 in 2020.

Recently, Dr Samia assured that not a single student will miss an opportunity to join secondary school due to lack of classrooms.

She said the government has managed to construct a total of 8,000 fully furnished classrooms for secondary schools countrywide.

In less than two years of President Samia in office, the government surpassed the target of constructing classrooms for secondary schools by 198 per cent.

Going by the Third National Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP-III) being implemented between 2021/22 and 2025/26, the government planned to construct 4,040 classrooms for secondary schools across the country.

However, last year alone, the government built 8,000 new classrooms, which are already in use this year.

Buildings, classrooms, laboratories and equipment- education infrastructure – are crucial elements of learning environments in schools and universities. There is strong evidence that high-quality infrastructure facilitates better instruction, improves student outcomes and reduces dropout rates, among other benefits.

The government has managed to improve and increase availability of social services through the execution of various projects under the Covid-19 Socio-economic Response Plan and Recovery Plan.

Presenting a report on monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the Covid-19 fund in April this year, Professor Henry Mollel from Mzumbe University said that success has been recorded in education, health, tourism, water and social protection sectors.

He noted that in education sector 368.9bn/- was allocated and it has helped in construction of 12,000 secondary schools and 3,000 primary school classrooms 50 dormitories.