Publication: Fiscal Implications of Free Education: The Case of Tanzania
Date
2019-01
ISSN
Published
2019-01
Author(s)
Abstract
Tanzania became one of the first
low-income countries to abolish fees for lower secondary
education (grades 8-12) in 2015. One of the pledges of a
new, reformist government, the policy built on the country’s
previous experience of abolishing primary fees in 2002. The
new Fee-Free Basic Education Policy (FFBEP) extended the
abolition of formal fees to lower secondary education, and
prohibited both primary and lower secondary schools from
levying informal fees, such as for inspections. The
introduction of FFBEP has already enabled a large increase
in the proportion of students entering primary school, and
the proportion transitioning to secondary level. Over the
next few years more than a million additional lower
secondary places will be required to meet the increase in
demand. This rapid expansion of lower secondary education is
a boon for access and an important step for Tanzania to
achieve its goal of attaining middle-income status by 2025.
However, such a pace of expansion poses a significant fiscal
challenge. Careful planning is required at this stage to
develop a model of lower secondary education which can be
scaled up in a sustainable way. In partnership with the
government of Tanzania, the authors have developed a
simulation model to estimate the fiscal impacts of various
policy parameters with relevance to the implementation of
FFBEP at lower secondary level. The findings presented in
this note are based on the simulation tool developed for use
by the government.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Asim, Salman; Chugunov, Dmitry; Gera, Ravinder. 2019. Fiscal Implications of Free Education: The Case of Tanzania. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31466 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”