Tanzania is a country with a strong stated commitment to the goals of schooling for all, and of achieving gender equity within education. Economic difficulties over recent years have, however, meant that progress towards these goals has been slow.
This report aims to clarify the complex causes of these problems and to assist the process of policy choices in tacking them. It is based upon an extensive period of fieldwork between August 1995 and February 1996, which included surveys of, and group discussions with school personnel, pupils, and parents as well as those who had dropped out of school or never enrolled.
These surveys, supplemented by a review and synthesis of earlier work on gender and education, were designed to identify the main constraints affecting the education of girls and boys in Tanzania. In addition, the team collected and analysed a large amount of contextual information on enrolment trends, educational indicators, costs and expenditures which have been used in the report to identify the main policy options faced by the government, and to specify the cost and resource implications of alternative policy measures.
