Quality Primary Education in Tanzania: A Dream or Reality?

The government of Tanzania has made a significant effort to improve the educational system to the extent that has been awarded and recognized for the attainment of the millennium development goals before the time frame of 2015. This incredible job on universal primary education enrollment has been due to the eradication of school fees for primary education in 2000 and primary school enrolment expanded to 95% in 2009. Pre-primary and secondary educations have also achieved steady expansions. Even though more classrooms have been built and the enrollment number reached 100%, many people claim that the quality of education in primary school is still poor and that pupils are not learning fundamental skills they need to find work prosper in their society and contribute to the national economic development. Tanzania is the only country in the world that needs to be recognized and is supposed to be in the Guinness book of having two thirds of primary school leavers who are unable to read and write well. They also lack basic numerical skills and 85% neither are unable to neither construct nor speak correct English sentences. Over 80% are selected to join secondary education or any other forms of further education. This paper discusses what went wrong. Is the name of primary education in Tanzania is an offence rather than a realization of human right? Dilapidated primary schools, inadequate facilities, poor trained and under- motivated teachers, poor working environment, inadequate supplies of teaching-learning materials, and lack of libraries which undermine rather than nourishing the potential of primary education. All these issues made me to articulate that quality primary education is a dream rather than a reality.