Cracks in support for two Tanzanian rural primary schools with high performance on national exams

International Journal of Educational Development 43 (2015) 32–40

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International Journal of Educational Development journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev

Cracks in support for two Tanzanian rural primary schools with high performance on national exams Daniel M. Roberts * Michigan State University, Office of International Studies in Education, College of Education, Erickson Hall, 620 Farm Lane, East Lansing, MI 48824, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 5 June 2014 Received in revised form 20 April 2015 Accepted 23 April 2015

National examinations are the principle method for tracking school quality and selecting students for successive educational levels in Tanzania. A qualitative approach is used to investigate the effects of highstakes testing at two government primary schools with high passing rates in rural northern Tanzania. Extensive interviews and observations reveal that teachers’ interactions with students including their instruction and management strategies are compromised by national exam preparation. In follow-up interviews, the majority of participants desired changes in the content and structure of national exams and the teaching methods used to prepare students for exams. ã2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Educational quality Rural Tanzania East Africa Primary schooling National exams

1. Introduction Despite recent reform, educational quality within Tanzanian government schools remains highly problematic. To address these constraints, in 2005 Tanzania’s Ministry of Education & Vocational Training replaced its national primary school curriculum. While its previous curriculum was structured around the use of teachercentered instructional methods like rote instruction, drilling and content-based methods of evaluation, its new Primary School Education Curriculum (PSEC) reform requires teachers to apply instructional methods where students actively participate in their learning. This intensive qualitative study began by examining how teachers responded to the reform in two high-performing government primary schools in rural northern Tanzania and then elicited community members’ reactions to the educational services provided. Although there was considerable variation in the desire for educational reform, what became apparent was the conflict between tradition and the need to change, suggesting that the existing Tanzania structures for its teaching profession remain at odds with community members’ desires and those of the government. Through ethnographic research carried out during the 2011 and 2012 academic years in two government primary schools in rural northern Tanzania where more than 95% of students passed

* Corresponding author. Present address: 1125 Bement St., Lansing, MI 48912, United States. Tel.: +1 5173530660. E-mail address: [email protected] (D.M. Roberts). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2015.04.006 0738-0593/ ã 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

national exams, this study examines the underlying realities of how educational services are delivered and draws on community perspectives, writ large, to examine their views on these existing schooling practices. The particular focus is how the discourse is enacted at the community-level on the value of national exam test preparation as well as conventional schooling norms in comparison to the recent PSEC reform’s objectives. It employs an on-theground perspective to examine whether teachers, rural community members and their children support certain public school services and procedures in their villages. 1.1. Context of educational reform in Tanzania Like many other sub-Saharan African (SSA) nations, under the Dakar Framework for Action of Education for All Tanzania adopted a national goal of increasing access to schools and enrollment rates (Tanzania Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (TMEVT), 2010). However, in the wake of two post-millennium reforms, the Primary Education Development Program (PEDP) and the Secondary Education Development Program (SEDP), which sought to raise student enrollment rates through increasing the number of schools and teachers, research within Tanzania has shown an imbalanced attention to quantity over quality (Anangisye, 2010; Davidson, 2005; Kuder, 2005; Sifuna, 2007; Wedgwood, 2007). Justifying this criticism is the now-famous Uwezo report (2011) that underscored that the majority of students in Tanzania in year 2 of primary school or higher (ages 10–16) failed year 2 math and literacy exams developed by Uwezo, in spite of these resources and change in direction. Why was this the case?

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One reason for this is the material constraints that Tanzanian teachers face in their work and living conditions. Similar to other SSA countries, teachers in Tanzania face common problems in trying to cope with the lack of basic resources like relevant texts, sufficient classrooms and desks, water in order to maintain proper sanitation, access to reliable transportation and good housing (Baker, 2011; Barrett, 2005; Vavrus and Bartlett, 2012; Weber, 2007). For example, school construction efforts through the PEDP and SEDP reforms were found to be inadequate: (i) buildings were not constructed quickly to accommodate the increased enrollment of students and (ii) there was a lack of financial commitment by the ministry — only 63 of the promised 150 billion shillings were dispersed and only 62% was allocated to teacher housing and school facilities (Baker, 2011; HakiElimu, 2012; Mbelle, 2008). Also, through PEDP there was an increase in teacher supply by 13% compared to a 44% increase in pupils (Davidson, 2004). Consequently, teachers struggled to develop meaningful interactions with their students due to the large classroom sizes (Barrett, 2007). The lack of response by the ministry and local governments suggests that many of the challenges Tanzanian teachers face are outside of their control. There are other conditions also affecting the challenges teachers face including insufficient teacher training, low teacher salaries, chronic student absenteeism, low teacher status, lack of teacher benefits (e.g., healthcare) and a high workload (Barrett, 2007; Davidson, 2007; Mkumbo, 2012; Yu and Thomas, 2008). These problems are exacerbated in rural areas where teacher/ student ratios are 1:59 in comparison to a national average of 1:40 (Baker, 2011). In addition to the challenges of accommodating students in insufficient buildings (Salema, 2009), teachers also have other assigned responsibilities at their schools other than teaching that they struggle to fulfill (e.g., school committee, school farm supervisor, school lunch coordinator, exam preparation and grading, daily rituals like the ringing of the school bell, announcements, school uniform inspection and assemblies) (Vavrus and Salema, 2013). While teachers may struggle to fulfill these multiple responsibilities assigned to them, further educational opportunities are seldom provided through the ministry, district or ward (a sub-region of Tanzanian districts) in how to manage these additional roles and apply the new content of the PESC reform appropriately (HakiElimu, 2012). Furthermore, due to their meager salaries, teachers are unable to address the challenges they face in the workplace through paying for further education and training. Therefore, they commonly opt to generate income through other employment, which often overlaps with their teaching responsibilities (Bennell and Mukyanuzi, 2005). 1.2. Standardized exams in Tanzania and the PSEC reform One of the pressures facing teachers in Tanzania is standardized tests. Standardized exams began in Tanzania during the British colonial system as early as 1926. These exams became competitive for placements into higher levels of education in 1947. After independence in 1961, Tanzania’s first president, Julius Nyerere, established the (National Examination Council of Tanzania, 2004) (NECTA) in 1972 and sought to redesign the national exams to develop more alignment with his government’s socialist ideologies and the particular needs of his nation’s citizenry (NECTA, 2004). One effect was the replacement of the exams’ writing portions with test items of factual knowledge. It was decided that national exams would continue to be utilized for determining the placement of students in higher levels of education (Bartlett and Vavrus, 2013). In recent times, high-stakes testing in Tanzania and other low-income countries has been reinforced in support of UNESCO’s ‘Education for All’ learning targets through pressure

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from international agencies who attach aid to achievement of measurable learning outcomes (Goldstein, 2004). The national curriculum has reinforced teacher-centered methods of instruction to prepare students for national exams (Bartlett and Vavrus, 2013). As a likely consequence to international pressure calling on Tanzania to improve its educational system, in 2005 the ministry called on dramatic change in the pedagogical methods used by Tanzanian teachers through the PSEC reform (Vavrus et al., 2011). The reform calls on teachers to use participatory and cooperative learning instructional methods as well as competency-based assessment strategies. In addition to supplying new textbooks, manuals and materials to teachers which incorporate activities that engage students in the learning process, teachers are required to apply instructional methods where students think critically, use inquiry-based learning and develop problem solving skills through real-life scenarios (Mushi, 2009). 1.3. Challenges to the PESC reform Despite the reform, it appears that Tanzanian teachers still commonly rely on teacher-centered instructional methods like rote instruction, drilling and content-based methods of evaluation in order to prepare students for national exams. This has occurred for a number of reasons. First, Tanzanian teachers have been provided with insufficient training by the ministry. Even when training for teachers is offered in how to implement active methods of instruction by outside actors, teachers and students may oppose the use of such methods because of the lack of correspondence between what is being learned and the content on national exams (Vavrus, 2009). Second, prospective teachers have scant opportunities to observe firsthand how such methods are appropriately implemented in teacher training colleges (Vavrus et al., 2011). Education faculty rely on lecture and also struggle to supervise pre-service teachers in their practicum experience due to long distances, limited vehicles and inadequate gas reimbursement (Robinson et al., 2002). Third, the reform measures are not reinforced in schools because: (i) students are less able to move their desks to do group work in overcrowded classrooms, (ii) head teachers are not provided with sufficient training in how to mentor their teachers and (iii) head teachers prefer their teachers to maintain quiet classrooms where students copy information (Leyendecker et al., 2008; Vavrus, 2009). Fourth, a learner-centered pedagogy calls for the coconstruction of knowledge by teachers and students; in Tanzania such a process contests the teacher’s authority as the one who possesses expertise about the content (Vavrus et al., 2011). Fifth, Tanzanian teachers often lack strong language proficiencies to facilitate dialogue, debate and utilize open-ended questions effectively because the main language of instruction used – Swahili for primary school and English for secondary school – may be their second or third language (Brock-Utne, 2007). Given the myriad of challenges Tanzanian teachers face which is delineated in the literature, the researcher began this study by focusing on two highly regarded primary schools and contextualizing how teaching and learning practices are enacted at these schools in the wake of the PSEC reform. 2. Methodology The research design was an in-depth eight-month qualitative enquiry at two primary schools with high passing rates on exams. Teacher instructional practices were observed for the academic year 2011–12. Community members, operationalized as parents, students, elders and teachers, were interviewed to seek their responses to these practices. The sample was selected through two

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months of initial visits to 16 different government primary schools in northern Tanzania. During the two months of initial visitations, each school’s quality was rated by the researcher based on (i) the percentage of students who passed year 7 national exams; (ii) school organization and management; (iii) the district education officers’ (DEOs) reports on each site’s educational quality and (iv) the effectiveness of their supplemental school activities, such as their school farm and feeding programs. From this data, two schools with the highest cumulative ratings were selected and the researcher spent two months working full-time at each school site and living within the communities. An ethnographic methodological approach was applied through observation of daily life in and out of classrooms and participation in school activities. This included providing assistance with farm work, school lunch preparation and classroom instruction as needed. The researcher drew on ten years of experience as a primary school teacher in low-income contexts in the United States and abroad. Later, each site was revisited for one month to observe school activities and conduct follow-up interviews. 2.1. Context of the two communities The first government primary school site, Nyota Primary School (NPS), is located in Nyota village, Moshi rural district, Kilimanjaro region. At the time this research was conducted, its ward had a population of 45,000 spread over ten villages. The villagers are from the Chaga ethnic group and the main crop is bananas, which are sold in the Nyota market to traders from nearby Kenya and coastal locations inTanzania, such as Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. The second government primary school site was Fadhili Primary School1 (FPS) in Ngarenanyuki village, Arumero district in the Arusha region of northeastern Tanzania. The village had a population of 16,988, with the majority of the Fadhili community being farmers from the Meru ethnic group. The site is positioned on irrigation canals flowing from Mount Meru. Farmers there can grow tomatoes all year round, thereby attaining higher prices in the dry season when tomato supply decreases but demand remains high. On initial contact with the case study schools, NPS had 296 students and 15 teachers while FPS had a total enrollment of 362 students and 8 teachers. Students passing rates on year 4 and 7 exams were 93.8% at NPS and 93.6% at FPS in 2011, in comparison to the national average of 58.3% (Tanzania Education Through Empowerment Association, 2011). One reason for this is that both districts, Arumero and Moshi rural, are well known for their students’ high performance on national exams in comparison to other districts nationwide (TMEVT, 2010). A major difference between the sites lies in community contributions and support. There was a four decade history of community contributions for the construction of NPS school facilities, whereas FPS was constructed recently in 2005 with limited community support. Unlike Nyota, where the importance of educational attainment for youth was more widely emphasized, in Fadhili, families commonly opted to pull their children out of school in order to generate immediate income through farming tomatoes. 2.2. Data collection and participants Data were collected using a variety of methods including daily field notes drawn from observations of school activities and school records of exams, attendance, students’ exam scores and teachers’ written feedback on student work. After two weeks of observations in each site, interviews were conducted in an empty classroom of each school with teachers (n = 11 female; n = 5 male) who had two or 1

The school names and sites are pseudonyms.

more years of teaching experience and local ward education officers (n = 3). This was followed by 72 total interviews with students and their parents at both schools (n = 30 students, n = 42 parents). The sample of students and parents was selected from a diverse range of household backgrounds in order to learn about their different perspectives on public schooling in their communities. This included single mother, high socioeconomic status (SES), low SES, educated parents, different tribe and households in remote locations. Student interviews were focus groups because students were observed to be more verbose when their peers were present. Students who were interviewed were requested by their head teacher to arrange interviews with the heads of their households at their homes. All interviews were conducted in Swahili and lasted between 30–90 min. For four years, the researcher spent significant time living in Tanzania through home-stays, participating in language study programs and conducting research on schooling in Arumero District, Dar es Salaam and southern Tanzania (see Phillips and Roberts, 2010). A semi-structured interview protocol was utilized; all questions were open-ended and were directed towards participants’ assessments of common procedures followed at their schools. These included thematic areas that emerged during observations of school activities which comprised teacher and student rapport, teachers’ instructional strategies, teachers’ behavior management approaches and the role of students in school learning and work activities. Time was also spent working with students and teachers during school hours and engaging informally with community members in non-school hours. This extended engagement in the local context provided an opportunity to build trust between the researcher and community members. A high degree of familiarity was developed which enriched the research process. Participants were therefore more likely to impart truthful responses (HesseBiber and Leavy, 2006; Lincoln and Guba, 1985). The methodological approach drawn upon was based on the position of Emerson et al. (1995) that participants’ meanings cannot fully be understood solely through interviews or informal questioning due to time constraints, distrust of the researcher, discomfort, perceived threats to anonymity and breaches of cultural norms of communication. Although strong relationships forged between the researcher and respondent may lead to reluctance to being openly critical of their local context (Vincent and Warren, 2001), this was addressed through conducting follow-up interviews with participants who were interviewed previously and who had become familiar with the investigator after living and working within their community for a series of months. This research used inductive analysis so that the findings could surface from the major themes found in observations, interview responses and documents collected without restrictions established by pre-established theory and agenda (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2009; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Since no pre-arranged interview protocol was adhered to in interviews, the participants were given the space to discuss areas of their own choosing (Strauss and Corbin, 1998; Thomas, 2006). This added information that was meaningful to participants (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2006; Mertler and Charles, 2008). The objective was to understand the reasons for certain instructional practices and teacher behaviors as well as the assumptions about education and how parents interceded. All of the interviews were then transcribed by a Tanzanian transcription team and then translated by the researcher. Drawing on methods established by Gorden (1992) for coding, the narrative information was condensed into data groups, a text databank was generated and related themes were identified through regularly reviewing interview transcriptions, field notes and documents (Creswell, 2008). Following the coding procedures, triangulation was used through extensive discussion of the

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findings with the researcher’s dissertation committee in order to increase the internal validity of the findings (Lincoln and Guba, 2000). Member-checking was used by discussing the text databank and preliminary themes with participants (Creswell and Miller, 2000). Information from interview responses is included so that readers better understand the realities of the community members’ views and experiences and the analyses of the resulting themes. Approval was obtained through Tanzania’s ethical protocol and conformed to the United States’ Institutional Review Board’s guidelines. Consent was given through the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology and research permits were given. Meetings were held with district and ward education officers and their letters of approval were presented when each school was visited. The school head teachers approved of the research and consented to allowing observation of school activities in exchange for providing assistance at their schools as needed. To ensure confidentiality, names of participants are not disclosed. 3. Results During the three months spent at each school, incidences were frequently observed that reinforced national exam preparation but called into question the view that these schools were successful due to students’ high passing rates on national exams. This included instances of rote instruction where students were left in charge of classrooms, chronic teacher absenteeism, corporal punishment and students being pulled from class to do work tasks in compliance with teachers’ orders. These observations are included in order to provide examples of the realities of teaching and learning practices in the two schools. While in the first round of interviews community members stated that they were satisfied with their schools because students were passing national exams, in follow-up interviews, after the researcher had established more trust through living and working in the communities for an extended period of time, the views of community members were again solicited on inconsistencies that arose in the data collection process. It was found that the majority of parent respondents strongly disagreed with and desired change in certain standard practices in their children’s schools. This stemmed from parents being more informed about the state of education in their children’s schools in comparison to other schools and their concerns about the ability of their children to procure work in their futures. In particular, the view that teachers should adapt more learner-centered methods of instruction was pervasive. 3.1. Teachers instructing students how to practice taking the test Observations of teachers’ instructional methods at these two schools revealed that their lesson plans were structured around preparing students for national exams. Teachers did this in two ways. First, they applied rote instructional methods in their classrooms and gave students a series of mock exams. The typical instructional methods teachers relied on were sequentially to (i) lecture students and write notes on the board; (ii) assign students desk work and (iii) either leave the classroom or do deskwork while students quietly completed their work, as the following vignette from an NPS math class illustrates: The class remains quiet as the teacher fills up notes on the chalkboard. When the teacher is finished, he leaves. The students must fill in the blanks in the spaces of what he has written; this is their test. 15 min later the teacher returns and corrects the students’ work individually. Then it is the end of the class.

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Second, mock exams were administered at both school sites. At FPS, only year 4 and 7 students were given a series of seven mock exams, since they are the only primary school students who take national exams annually. This included district, region, ward and school exams (midterm and end-of-term exams). At NPS, similar procedures were followed, except that exam procedures were more rigorous: all students were given monthly examinations and the results were posted on a bulletin board in the front corridor of the school which could be viewed by students and parents. NPS students also competed with other schools on selected ward mock examinations (see Barrett, 2010). A main reason given by teachers for why exam preparationwas more rigorous at NPS was because their region, Kilimanjaro, was one of the highest performing in the nation (TMEVT, 2010). As a likely consequence, there were expectations from their district and ward governments to get high scores on exams. Through adhering to a system where teaching and learning were geared to exam preparation, one effect observed at FPS was that teachers stopped teaching their students during the final month of the school year. This week the students took two to three short exams on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday that lasted an hour or so each. The rest of the time the students were unsupervised and permitted to play games of their choice in their classrooms and in the school field. When asked why they ceased instruction, teachers explained that they had finished teaching the required content on the national curriculum for that year, like this FPS veteran male teacher: We have finished teaching what is required in the national curriculum. We now need to spend time preparing and grading end-of-the-year exams. Teachers at the two schools explained that they followed such methods because government inspectors mainly relied on exam results to monitor educational quality in their district’s schools. Inspectors were seldom able to visit their district schools due to limited funding for transport, as described by Ngarenanyuki’s ward education officer: In order for me to visit primary schools in Mchanga, I must visit schools on my motorcycle. There are no funds available from the government, so I must pay for gas. I have a family and am paid a very low salary. How can I be expected to pay for this if my family cannot eat? Government inspectors therefore relied on high-stakes testing in their evaluation of school performance instead of visiting schools. As a likely consequence, teachers structured their lessons to be lecture-based where students copied information from blackboards and then were left alone to independently complete assigned work. One effect of this instructional approach was that students were seldom engaged in writing activities aside from copying work from the board and textbook exercises, as a field note excerpt from an NPS science class illustrates: The teacher copies notes from his textbook about the human organs at the board and the students must copy what is written. The teacher leaves blanks in his writing where the students must fill in the missing words at their desks. He then explains what the words are that they should write in the blanks. Then the students must complete their work at their desks quietly. One of the effects of teachers remaining in their office grading and preparing end-of-the-year exams was student absenteeism, as this field note excerpt illustrates: Since no educational activities were planned and no teachers entered inside classrooms again today, only 11 out of the 36 year 6 students showed up today.

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Through working full-time at each school site, I observed other discrepancies with teacher attendance that contrasted with students’ high passing rates on national exams. This included chronic teacher absenteeism from scheduled classroom teaching responsibilities. 3.2. Chronic teacher absenteeism even at schools with high exam results Teachers at both schools were scheduled to teach 20–28 classes per week. Their assigned teaching responsibilities were written on charts in each of the teachers’ offices. Yet in a regular school day 1 observed that FPS and NPS teachers generally taught only one to three out of seven scheduled class periods per day (3–15 classes per week). The following field note excerpt presents a typical morning at FPS. Today the morning classroom schedule for year 6 students was observed. The students were to be taught Swahili from 8:00– 8:40 am, Math from 8:40–9:20 am and English from 9:20– 10:00 am. However, on this day, the students did not receive any instruction; they were left in their classrooms alone without any bookwork to complete. While a few students studied their notes independently, the majority of played games and talked to each other at their desks. The reasons FPS teachers gave for their chronic absenteeism from their scheduled classroom times of instruction were: (i) teachers’ meetings held weekly; (ii) trips to the market to buy food supplies; (iii) development of lesson plans or the grading of exams; (iv) other responsibilities they needed to carry out at the school (see Vavrus and Salema, 2013) or (v) travel to the city (Arusha or Moshi) to collect their salaries at the bank or print out exams for students. At NPS, teachers followed their teaching schedules in the mornings but not in the afternoon. This was because Math, Swahili and English were taught during the morning; these subjects were viewed as more important since they were included on national exams. During the afternoon, teachers commonly sat in the office preparing or grading exams, drinking tea, chatting with other teachers, calling students in to collect school fees for the following school year or supervising student labor tasks around the school. Students remained in their classrooms where they were supervised by student monitors: The student monitor stands in front of the class and writes names down of interrupting students. In her notebook, there are fifteen names written down. Later she gives this sheet of paper to the teacher in charge and these students are caned by their teacher. At both schools, students were commonly left in their classrooms without teacher supervision. During this time, they did school work independently or were left with nothing to do, as was captured by this year 7 female student at FPS: The teachers teach us two or three subjects out of seven each day which are usually just English, Math, and Swahili. When they are not in class there are two monitors who watch the class and write down names of students who talk. When students are left alone, teachers assign work or to review their notes they have written. Some students study and some just sit there. Several students reported that they found it difficult to study when teachers left them alone and that many chose not to do school work, like this year 7 male FPS student. He also noted that problems may arise when the monitor writes down names of offtask students: It is difficult to study when a teacher is not there. Many of us just sit idle. Some decide not to come to school. The student monitor

can also get in trouble with the other students. One time one of the monitors wrote the name down of a student in class who was not talking. Later this student went and hit the monitor. Students were also commonly pulled out of class to do farm work or pick up supplies from the market or stores as needed. The labor of all students was used when corn was planted or harvested and when fields needed to be cleared or weeded. At FPS, female students were consistently pulled from their classrooms in order to help prepare the school lunch: Two year 6 girls are ordered by their teacher to work in the school kitchen. While the other students in their class continue to be taught by their teacher, they go to scrape out the large pot used to cook the school lunch of corn and beans. This was a practice which the majority of FPS parents were critical of in follow-up interviews. Nonetheless, at both schools such practices were maintained and reinforced through negative behavior management strategies by teachers. 3.3. Teachers enforce a transmission model of learning through behavior management practices Students were expected to be quiet in class and follow instructions in order to learn the information transmitted to them so as to be prepared to pass national exams. Similar to most SSA societies where the traditional role of children is to silently respect and obey (Riedmiller, 2002), a year 6 female FPS student from a typical household explained that this was a central cultural expectation for youth in her village: Many students are forbidden to talk to their parents like me. We are not accustomed to speaking to adults. Differences in the behavior management strategies practiced at each school hinged on community support for teachers’ ability to enforce student behavior of quietly preparing for exams through drill and practice at their desks. While the main method for enforcing student compliance with this expectation at NPS was through corporal punishment, at FPS teachers did not employ this method due to lack of community support. The vignette below presents how corporal punishment was applied at NPS on a consistent basis: One morning during the 10:00 a.m. break the students were lined up at the back lot in rows. The teacher came out. She eyed the students fiercely, “Who didn’t bring firewood today that was supposed to do so? Step in front! Quickly!” She eyed the year 4 boy students and a few of them came out too slowly. She hit them each swiftly on their backside with her switch, “You didn’t bring firewood? Go and sweep the school ground and pull out weeds.” In interviews, all NPS parents expressed full support for the use of corporal punishment for non-compliance among students: I support teachers’ caning students. This is a necessary way for a child to be disciplined. In contrast, while parents in Nyota village supported corporal punishment, as they use such disciplinary measures in their own households, a minority of NPS students were concerned about what they considered excessive caning practices applied by particular teachers, like this head girl student leader at NPS: [If I were the head teacher at NPS] I would shorten the number of times students get hit by teachers. One of the teachers only hits students three times. But most teachers hit students 20 times or more, especially the head teacher and the other male teacher. In follow-up interviews, several NPS teachers did not support the use of caning as the most effective method of discipline. This

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minority felt that alternative disciplinary methods were more effective, for example, this veteran NPS female teacher who compared her school’s practices with private schools: In private schools in Tanzanian students are patted on the back. They learn well and their schools are successful. I think if students are given different punishments like doing work in the farm field this is better. These differences in community and teacher support for corporal punishment indicate that this is an area in which views on best practices may be changing, especially in terms of introducing alternative forms of discipline. Since the current disciplinary systems used at both schools rely solely on negative reinforcement, this change could include the training of teachers to use positive systems of reinforcement. However, in follow-up interviews, parents supported teachers' use of corporal punishment but were in favor of teachers applying alternative instructional methods. 3.4. Opposition to rote instruction and the quality of exams In initial interviews I found that parental support for instructional methods in schools focused on exam preparation was high; advancement to higher levels of education was thought to enable students to attain positions of employment with more income. They were also content with the work of teachers at their children’s schools because the teachers were: (i) more motivated than teachers at other government primary schools; (ii) raised additional school revenues through income generation activities (e.g., harvesting crops, renting school land to local farmers, collaborative school projects with external donor support) and (iii) worked extra classes on the weekend to prepare students for national exams. NPS teachers charged students 100 Tanzanian shillings ($.06 USD approximately) per weekend session for these additional classes. FPS teachers taught additional classes voluntarily due to community unwillingness to pay for the additional instruction. To support their position, parents drew upon experiences from their childhood where such techniques were typical, like this NPS parent: This is how teachers have always taught me. This is how teachers need to teach. Students write in their notebooks what is written at the board so they can study this later. What else can a teacher do besides this? However, in follow-up interviews, the majority of parents and teachers disclosed their belief that the instructional practice of having students copy notes does not enable them to learn information more deeply and that students learn more effectively when they are actively engaged in practical activities, discussion/ debate, open-ended questions and group work. This view was captured by an FPS parent from an educated household: When teachers do [lecture and have students copy notes], only 15% [of students] understand what the teacher is teaching. If teachers had students participate in activities, 60% would understand. In follow-up interviews, the majority of teachers also revealed that having students become more active in the learning process was more effective than lecturing them, like this veteran female teacher from NPS: If kids are going to learn more they need to be involved actively. Many students [here] do not understand because teachers just write on the board and students copy. The system here supports teachers just to talk so that students memorize information and take the national exams. The ministry can have teachers teach using activities if they decide to do so.

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These teachers pointed out how they chose to continue to use teacher-centered methods of instruction because this was how their performance was evaluated. However, in follow-up interviews community members raised questions about the value of such instructional practices. One reason for their criticism of classroom instruction centered on lecture and test preparation was that the content of national exams was much less challenging in recent years. This was described by an FPS parent from a single mother household: I took the exam in 1993. At that time it was not easy to get into secondary school like it is now. On the test there was not much multiple choice. Students had to explain their work through writing . . . .we had to write essays . . . .we had to write full sentence responses. The majority of community members viewed the exam to be easier because passing scores have been lowered significantly in recent times since there are more available secondary schools. A high percentage of students are now able to advance to secondary school despite having lower competencies in reading, writing and math skills (see Wedgewood, 2007). Parents also described how students no longer were learning to articulate their thinking in written or verbal form due to the omission of essays and short answer response on the exams. This exam structure was criticized by a single mother from FPS who stated that youth in her village were less able to write and speak clearly due to instruction being geared to national exam preparation for multiple choice items in classrooms: The problem is that the national exam is designed so that students just need to memorize . . . Teachers teach students in order to prepare them for multiple choice answers on the exam. It is not the teachers’ fault. It is the ministry. In follow-up interviews, the majority of teachers and students were critical of the lack of writing activities at their schools, such as this year 7 NPS female student: This academic year we only wrote one essay in Swahili class that was one page long. If I were the head teacher at NPS I would have students write essays more often. Teachers validated that they no longer taught students how to write because it was not included on national exams, like the NPS head teacher: Teachers do not have students write essays in classes anymore because they just teach according to the previous national exams from other years because some of the same questions will be on it for this year. Teachers justified their use of instruction centered on exam preparation as well as their need to miss teaching their assigned classroom schedule. 3.5. Teachers’ views on their instructional methods and behavior and reactions of community members Teachers excused their absenteeism because of the pressures they faced in their rural school environment. They stated that there was a teacher shortage in their schools and they did not have enough time to fulfill all of their teaching responsibilities. They explained that there was no system of accountability in which teacher attendance was monitored, as a veteran NPS male teacher reported: Education officers rarely come to visit our school. When they do, they only pay attention to how many resources we do not have, like teacher housing, desks, and textbooks.

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One of the teachers who was chronically absent from teaching responsibilities at NPS revealed his reasoning for why he did not adhere to his classroom teaching schedule: We cannot teach when we have meetings. We are required to attend. I cannot always follow my schedule. When there is a day for planting or harvesting corn, I cannot teach my classes. His response discloses that there is a school culture of acceptance for teacher absenteeism due to other responsibilities teachers must fulfill. The FPS head teacher even acknowledged that he did not expect his teachers to fulfill their classroom teaching responsibilities: Teachers [here] cannot teach all the lessons required. There are seven periods in the day and teachers have to teach five or six. For each class they have to correct student work. It is not possible for teachers to grade all of this work. However, unlike teachers, in follow-up interviews the majority of parents reacted in opposition to teachers’ failure to adhere to their classroom teaching schedule. The majority of parents in both communities stressed the importance of teachers following their schedules and that problems arise when they do not, like this educated FPS parent: In truth, this is harmful to the learning of our children. Teachers should be following their schedule. Parents did not support teacher absenteeism from classroom responsibilities, particularly when teachers turned instruction over to students and placed student leaders in charge of teaching other students, a common practice at NPS. An NPS male parent articulated this view: When teachers turn instruction over to students, these students will fall behind, especially the less able ones, because the student who teaches will make mistakes. When teachers have a meeting I think it is better for them to be in class. A few of the teachers could rotate supervising the classes. NPS adult community members explained that they wanted teachers to be in the classroom because they desired their children to gain skills that enabled them to be competitive job applicants in the future. They cited that, in many cases, East Africans from other nations such as Kenya and Uganda were out-competing Tanzanians for jobs due to their stronger level of proficiency in English and other subject areas like mathematics and science in comparison with Tanzania. This was because non-tariffed internal trade between East African countries was allowed under the Economic Partnership Agreement of the East African Community Customs Union in 2004 (Yang and Gupta, 2007). Although parents were critical of teachers being absent, they recognized the constraints teachers faced: low salaries and the ministry’s lack of supervision and support. However, they did not have high expectations for their teachers to comply with their job responsibilities because when they were children their own teachers did not adhere to their teaching schedules. This was articulated by an NPS mother: When I was a student [at NPS] the teachers were irresponsible. They were constantly truant or absent. There were days when all we did was play out in the field for the entire day or stay in a class. Only one subject was taught to us during that whole time. Today it is better but not very different. Parents also excused teacher absenteeism because they recognized that teachers encountered many problems in their work, such as that teachers were worried about the increase in living costs coupled with a drop in teacher status which has resulted in low salaries. This has become a main concern of Tanzanian teachers, which has resulted in widespread teacher attrition (Towse et al., 2002).

In follow-up interviews with a few NPS students, however, they explained that they were content with teacher absenteeism at their school because it was good preparation for studying later in ward government secondary schools. They expected teachers there to not be in the classroom either. This was captured in an interview with an NPS year 7 male student leader: It is okay when teachers turn over instruction to students because we learn self-reliance skills. In secondary school there are classrooms with sixty to eighty students and teachers often are not there. It is good for us to learn how to teach ourselves now. While many community members explained that students in their villages were likely to drop out in later years of education due to issues of educational quality and the inability to pay student fees, motivated students struggled to overcome such barriers through developing independent study skills. Despite the obstacles imposed within their school’s learning environment, advancement to higher levels of education was perceived as their only option for social mobility. 4. Discussion The analysis in the current study indicated that national exam preparation was the main reason why teachers were reluctant to adapt learner-centered pedagogical skills, methods and knowledge called upon through the PSEC reform (see Chisholm and Leyendecker, 2008; HakiElimu, 2012; Kellaghan, 2004). Tensions arose among participants about the pedagogies that produced the results and recognition of the two schools because the curricula taught was narrowed to subjects and information included on exams and instructors opted to adhere to lecture-based methods where students memorized exam content (see Au, 2007; Hursh, 2008; Jones et al., 2003). One reason why the teachers in this study used lecturebased teaching methods and had limited interaction with their students is because their primary responsibility is to prepare students to pass national exams (Kellaghan and Greaney, 2003); national exams are a critical factor for determining educational quality and which students enter into higher levels of education (HakiElimu, 2012). The major instructional delivery option for this is lecture aimed at the recalling of factual information (Stambach, 2000; Vavrus, 2009). A main reason for the reliance of teachers on rote instructional methods, given by Bartlett and Vavrus (2013), is that the content of Tanzanian national exams requires students to recall facts through test items with only one correct answer. Test items have been narrowed to only include multiple-choice, true/false, matching or fill in the blank sentence completion. Despite opposition from community members on teaching practices which reinforced exam preparation, the community members were satisfied with their schools because their main expectations were being met: (i) students passed national exams; (ii) resources were procured through donors and/or school income generation activities; (iii) lunch was provided to students and (iv) students learned income generation skills through their school farm activities. Although the negative actions of certain teaching and learning practices at their schools were noted by the majority of participants, they overlooked these practices; the value of passing national exams outweighed their opposition. Parents may have also stood aside because questioning teachers’ authority could lead to their children being subject to harsher treatment (see O-saki and Agu, 2002). Parents no longer felt that the traditional occupation in their communities, farming, was a viable method of employment.

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Therefore, they valued schooling because their children could attain alternative means of employment that would generate more income. However, a minority stated that completing secondary schooling may no longer lead to attaining positions of employment: the quality of government secondary schools was regarded as very poor, especially after 2005 when SEDP secondary schools were constructed in every ward in Tanzania in order to boost secondary enrollment (Machumu, 2011; Sumra and Rajani, 2006; Vavrus and Ojwang, 2013). This view was articulated by a veteran male FPS teacher: A few decades ago if you passed national exams and entered secondary schooling you would get a good job. Now if you pass, you may not get one. Although the majority of parents attached great importance to schooling, they were concerned about teaching practices centered on memorization because they felt that Tanzanian students would not be able to compete for local jobs in the future. Despite the strong political and policy weight valorizing national exam preparation, the majority of school and community stakeholders saw that increased teacher-student interaction, such as through cooperative group methods or hands-on instruction, had greater benefits for student learning in lieu of the traditional societal structure in both communities where adult and youth interaction was limited. Although their viewpoints are cohesive with the PSEC reform’s objectives, community members assumed that changes in the instructional practices of teachers are only contingent on training and support by the ministry. Their views on schooling hint at areas in which these communities and others within Tanzania might welcome and benefit from change. However, this may be empty rhetoric which will not be adapted without the provision of training and the establishment and reinforcement of mechanisms for support and oversight, particularly for less motivated teachers. This should include strategies for rural teachers to adapt such methods in classrooms of 50– 100 students with limited textbooks and resources. In light of the evidence from this study, at the system-wide level, the main policy recommendations are to restructure national exams to include sections which test the ability of students to use critical thinking and apply problem solving skills as well as written sections, such as short answer and essay responses where students must articulate their thinking and understanding using a logically structured argument or innovative approach. Such measures can be reinforced at the schoollevel through on-the-ground training and mentorship to teachers in implementing learner-centered methods of instruction. The provision of training should operate under the assumption that follow-up support must be given where teacher progress is consistently supported. This can be done through establishing a committee in each ward, comprised of teachers, government leaders and local stakeholders, who observe the teaching and learning practices of one another and use a system of positive reinforcement, structured feedback and guided reflection. Many teachers struggle to teach their classes in addition to other school and household responsibilities. The provision of professional development activities and assistance to teachers by the ministry, local governments and their communities in exchange for calling on them to adapt more interactive methods in their classrooms would be a fairer interchange than the current approach of handing over to them more job responsibilities without compensation or responding to their needs. 5. Conclusion Like other SSA nations, Tanzania is increasingly becoming part of the global community. One effect is increased pressure from

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higher-income nations for better educational outcomes, such as universal access to primary and secondary education and improved educational quality. Tanzania’s ministry has responded by building more schools and classrooms. Yet a spillover effect has been deteriorating educational quality due to overcrowded classrooms and teachers being given more teaching and work responsibilities without increased training or compensation. To address this, its ministry has reformed its national primary curriculum and has maintained the colonial/industrial model of high-stakes testing, both measures which have been supported by international lending agencies like UNESCO and the World Bank (Goldstein, 2004). However, a consequence seen in the primary schools in this study is the deterioration of educational quality due to less rigorous national exams and poor teaching quality, even in schools with high passing rates. Similar to other sub-Saharan African nations such as Zambia (see Thomas and Thomas, 2014), Tanzania faces major challenges in developing a teacher workforce who is punctual; teachers are not penalized for being absent or arriving late, and teacher time away is seldom recorded. Without professional development activities and monitoring of teacher performance and behavior, an in-school culture has been maintained of teacher absenteeism, minimal teacher-student interaction, reliance on rote instruction methods and the maintenance of disciplinary cultural content that is transferred to schools. Yet, due to the publication of the recent (Uwezo, 2011, 2014) math and literacy assessments, parents in Tanzania are increasingly more informed about the state of education in their public schools, particularly in comparison to neighboring nations in the East African region. Tensions are created when parents are more aware of the low quality of public educational services in their communities. Left unaddressed, parents are likely to opt to pay for private education if they can afford it. In Tanzania, private schooling is increasingly available to meet this demand (Lassibille et al., 2000). Commonly, these private schools recruit teachers from other East African nations with stronger educational backgrounds, especially in English. When parents cannot afford private schooling, which often is the case for rural families who comprise 90% of Tanzania’s population who live below the basic needs poverty line (International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), 2014), parents will be more inclined to encourage their children to pursue alternative options like farming, the traditional occupation in rural areas of Tanzania. Community members interviewed in this study admitted that they struggled to afford government schooling fees, let alone footing the bill for more costly alternatives. This denotes that there are limited options for rural Tanzanian children unless educational quality is specifically addressed in their government schools through on-the-ground support and training for teachers in rural Tanzanian schools. Such measures may not be adapted without the provision of hands-on training on an ongoing basis and the establishment and reinforcement of mechanisms for support and oversight, particularly for less motivated teachers. This should include strategies for rural teachers to adapt such methods in encumbering conditions with limited resources. Role of the funding source This material is based upon work supported by the Mellon Foundation via the Institute of International Education’s Graduate Fellowship, Pathways to Adulthood through the Institute of Education at the University of London, and funds from the John A. Hannah Chair at Michigan State University. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this

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