Publication: Student Learning Outcomes in Tanzania’s Primary Schools: Implications for Secondary School Readiness
Loading...
Published
2019-01
ISSN
Date
2019-03-29
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This policy note is an attempt to systematically analyze and document emerging trends in the evolution of students’ learning outcomes in Tanzania’s primary schools. The note is based on two rounds of the Service Delivery Indicators Survey in Tanzania, 2014 and 2016, and provides guidance to the Government on: (1) regional, district and school-level variations in gains in pupil achievement scores; (2) student, teacher and school level factors associated with learning outcomes; and (3) key observable factors associated with highest gains in test scores. The good news is that the Government’s concerted reform efforts are showing positive results in quality of schooling: test scores in English, Math, and Kiswahili for Standard four pupils have improved significantly over time. They have improved all across Tanzania, with largest gains registered in disadvantaged targeted districts (EQUIP-T3), followed by rural areas. Low-performing regions are catching up as the impacts of several large-scale investment programs are taking root. These improvements in test scores appear to be associated with improvements in teacher effort and subject knowledge. Rising pupil-teacher-ratios pose risks to continued learning improvements, particularly as the Government is preparing for rapid expansion in enrolments in the wake of the Fee-Free Basic Education Policy. Students tested for 2016 will be entering Form 1 secondary in 2018-19. For the improvements in learning at the primary level to have maximum impact, particularly in disadvantaged regions supported by EQUIP-T, they will require immediate attention to and investments in secondary schools to take these students through the full cycle of quality basic education promised by FFBEP. Female students, overage students, and non-native Kiswahili speakers continue to lag behind in learning, posing threats to the long-term equity of the system. Careful measurement of teacher practices at secondary level can provide ways to supportteaching behavior conducive to the well-being of these children.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Asim, Salman; Chugunov, Dmitry; Gera, Ravinder. 2019. Student Learning Outcomes in Tanzania’s Primary Schools: Implications for Secondary School Readiness. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31465 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Private Non-State Sector Engagement in the Provision of Educational Services at the Primary and Secondary Levels in South Asia : An Analytical Review of Its Role in School Enrollment and Student Achievement(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06)Private (non-state) sector engagement in the provision of educational services at the primary and secondary levels in South Asia has recently undergone remarkable growth. This type of education comes in various forms, such as schools financed and managed by the private sector, schools financed by the government and managed by the private sector, private school vouchers, and tutoring outside the classroom. According to recent household survey data, almost one-third of school-goers aged 6 to 18 years in South Asia go to private schools, with a high concentration in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Data for India, Nepal, and Pakistan show that on average, private schools perform at least as well as government schools on student test scores, after controlling for socioeconomic factors, and they do so at significantly lower costs to society. However, student achievement varies greatly across schools of each type, with many weak private schools as well as strong government schools. Substantial, albeit indirect, evidence points to teacher behavior and accountability as an important driver of the effectiveness of private schools. In the long run, however, many factors may play important roles in sustaining the private sector's advantage. Another risk is that overall poor quality in a large government sector may set a low benchmark for the private sector. The findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of government regulations for private schools, given weak institutional capacity. Public-private partnerships with effective accountability mechanisms could leverage both equity and efficiency. Finally, it appears important to understand and customize teaching to the child's individual level.Publication Language, Literacy, and Learning in Primary Schools : Implications for Teacher Development Programs in Nigeria(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)Language, Literacy, and Learning in Primary Schools is a synthesis of the findings arising from four years of policy research and development in Nigeria's primary schools that focused on the gap between what teachers should know and be able to do, and the realities of teaching and learning in classrooms. It begins by critically examining the outcomes of primary schooling as measured by learning achievement results from national assessments, and by identifying some core learning problems for Nigerian primary school children. It reviews the findings from recent research reports that studied teaching and learning processes in primary school classrooms, and it identifies the pedagogical issues in primary classrooms that contribute to poor learning achievements. This report describes a research and development program that set out to improve teaching and learning in core learning skill areas of the curriculum.Publication School Access, Resources, and Learning Outcomes(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-05)This study reports evidence from an unusual policy intervention- The Reaching Out of School Children (ROSC) project in Bangladesh where school grants and education allowances are offered to attract hard-to-reach children to schools comprised of a single teacher and a classroom. The operating unit cost of these schools is a fraction of that of formal primary schools. Panel data is used to investigate whether ROSC schools are effective in raising enrolment and learning outcomes. The findings suggest that there is a modest impact on school participation: ROSC schools increase enrolment probability between 9 and 18 percent for children in the two age cohorts 6 to 8 and 6 to 10. They perform as well as non-ROSC schools in terms of raising test scores, and even have positive impacts on academically stronger students. There is also strong evidence of positive externalities on non-ROSC schools in program areas. These results point to the effectiveness of a new model of non-formal primary schools that can be replicated in similar settings. This paper consists of following sections: section one gives introduction. The context for the country and the program description is provided in section two, and the data is described in section three. The impacts of the ROSC project on education outcomes as measured by student enrolment and test scores are discussed in section four and other program effects are considered in section five, with the empirical estimation frameworks being respectively detailed in each section. The relative efficiency of ROSC schools versus non-ROSC schools is discussed in section six and section seven gives conclusion.Publication Improving Education Outcomes in South Asia(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-07)There have been many initiatives to improve education outcomes in South Asia. Still, outcomes remain stubbornly resistant to improvements, at least when considered across the region. To collect and synthesize the insights about what actually works to improve learning and other education outcomes, this paper conducts a systematic review and meta-analysis of 29 education-focused impact evaluations from South Asia, establishing a standard that includes randomized control trials and quasi-experimental designs. It finds that while there are impacts from interventions that seek to increase the demand for education in households and communities, those targeting teachers or schools and thus the supply-side of the education sector are generally much more adept at improving learning outcomes. In addition, interventions that provide different actors with resources and those that incentivize behavioral changes show moderate but statistically significant impacts on student learning. A mix of input- and incentive-oriented interventions tailored to the specific conditions on the ground appears most promising for fostering education outcomes in South Asia.Publication The Permanent Input Hypothesis : The Case of Textbooks and (No) Student Learning in Sierra Leone(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-09)A textbook provision program in Sierra Leone demonstrates how volatility in the flow of government-provided learning inputs to schools can induce storage of these inputs by school administrators to smooth future consumption. This process in turn leads to low current utilization of inputs for student learning. A randomized trial of a public program providing textbooks to primary schools had modest positive impacts on teacher behavior but no impacts on student performance. In many treatment schools, student access to textbooks did not actually increase because a large majority of the books were stored rather than distributed to students. At the same time, the propensity to save books was positively correlated with uncertainty on the part of head teachers regarding government transfers of books. The evidence suggests that schools that have high uncertainty with respect to future transfers are more likely to store a high proportion of current transfers. These results show that reducing uncertainty in school input flows could result in higher current input use for student learning. For effective program design, public policy programs must take forward-looking behavior among intermediate actors into account.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.