The School Inspection Directorate in the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training will be transformed into an independent authority being part of efforts by the government to realize Big Results Now in the education sector.
Deputy Minister for Educational and Vocational Training, Mr Phillip Mulugo
The Deputy Minister for Education and Vocational Training, Philipo Mulugo, made the revelation in Parliament when responding to a supplementary question by Suzan Lyimo (Special Seats – Chadema), who demanded explanation with regards to efforts made to revive the functionality of the inspectorate unit for improvement of education standards.
“Education is among the six priorities identified by the government under ‘Big Results Now’ initiative. Process is underway for this directorate (school inspection) to become an authority for effective implementation of its duties,” Mulugo explained.
In a basic question, Said Bungara, MP (South Kilwa – CUF) asked the government to address challenges in the education sector which contributed to massive failures among Form Four candidates last year, which include lack of text books, teachers and laboratories among others.
“There are different factors that contribute to good performance among students. These include personal effort by a student, availability of text books, labs, cooperation between parents/guardians and teachers and conducive learning environment,” Mr Mulugo explained.
He said newly trained school teachers were deployed according to demand by each of the district councils such that in the financial year 2012/2013 a total of14,060 secondary school teachers were deployed to different places countrywide.
Within the specified period 13,633 newly employed primary school teachers were sent to various schools all over the country. This is an ongoing exercise to make sure that the teaching staff gap is adequately bridged.
As for availability of text books, the Deputy Minister said the popular radar money which amounts to 55bn/- has been allocated to the availability of the necessary teaching facilities such as text books, desks and others.
Also, pace has been increased in the construction of dormitories, laboratories, power installation, toilets and other facilities to establish comfortable teaching facilities in public schools. The target was to reach 1,200 public schools by 2015.
James Mbatia (Appointed MP) proposed establishment of a panel of editors to authenticate the relevance and accuracy of text books chosen for both primary and secondary schools in the country.
In April this year, poor Form Four results especially sparked heated debate in the House and MPs called for serious redress of the situation which included lack of well edited books and controversial teaching syllabus.
Source Tanzania Daily News
