- Title
- The trajectory of universal primary education and educational decentralisation in Tanzania 1961-2015: a Nyererean perspective
- Creator
- Baganda, Elpidius
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2016
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Despite the popularity and the breadth of his philosophical writings, few scholars have linked Tanzania’s founding post-independence President Julius Nyerere’s thinking to the analysis of Tanzanian educational policies and practices. Since 1961, Tanzania has initiated a series of reforms seeking to achieve Universal Primary education, coupled with a particular approach to educational decentralisation. An understanding of these reforms, and an assessment of their historical trajectory, requires an analysis of them through a Nyererean lens or framework. This project centres on developing such an understanding. The aim of this study is to examine and assess Tanzanian educational reforms, policies and structures, over the period 1961-2015, against the Nyererean framework developed for this project. This objective will be achieved by completing the following tasks: first, identify Nyerere’s over-arching socio-political and economic worldview, which sought to integrate traditional African values with the socialist philosophies and development demands of the postcolonial context, expressed in terms of a broad social and political project: Ujamaa (African socialism). Then, analyse educational policies across three identified time periods in terms of their relationship to the project of African socialism and in particular it’s key educational components: Ujamaa, education for self-reliance; educational expansion (UPE); and Nyererean educational decentralisation. The analysis of policy through a Nyererean framework yielded mixed results overtime. Whereas the pre Ujamaa period 1961-1966 was mainly characterised by the inherited conventional models underpinned by an emphasis upon post-primary education to lay the foundation for future economic growth, some ideas on Ujamaa such as brotherhood and abolition of racial discrimination in education, were also documented in policy. The Ujamaa and self-reliance period 1967-1985 was distinctive because it embraced most of the Nyererean perspectives in different areas such as education expansion, decentralisation and in particular merging study with work as part of the philosophy of forming citizens with the particular skills and dispositions that would be suited to the Ujamaa socialist society. Social-political and economic turmoil in the late 1970s and early 1980s is shown to have impacted on Ujamaa policies, leading into the 1986-2015 period in which policy reversed by moving away from the principles of Ujamaa and self-reliance. Here we see the neoliberal reforms of user-pays and privatisation of educational services. Although institutions such as the World Bank and other financial institutions arguably helped to boost the expansion of education to meet the Millennium Development Goals in the period since 2000, the approach used contrasted in significant ways with the Nyererean egalitarian ideals. This work contributes a distinctive educational policy analysis in this period, adding to existing research. Despite some divergences, particularly in recent years, there are threads of continuity of the legacy of Nyerere such as enduring social justice and equity, particularly in education expansion, merging work and study and community involvement. Given the continuity in relation to the overarching Nyererean framework, this historical account demonstrates a need to go beyond dominant approaches and reconsider the work of Nyerere for the deconstruction of African/Tanzania educational policies.
- Subject
- Nyererean (education) decentralisation; Ujamaa; African/Tanzanian socialism; Nyerere; universal primary education; education for self-reliance
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1321928
- Identifier
- uon:24479
- Rights
- Copyright 2016 Elpidius Baganda
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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