| Description of good practice: |
Tanzania has a relatively developed legislation on IE but national level coordination is lacking because a smaller number of NGOs are active in the country. It should be noted that IE development in Tanzania is uneven. In particular one of the regions, Zanzibar, is way ahead of the rest of the country in inclusive education. The below description covers different aspects of the situation in the country but does not try to define an average situation.
Similar to many developing countries, an accurate estimate of the number of disabled in Tanzania is unavailable. A survey conducted by the Basic Education Statistics in Tanzania (BEST) estimates that there were about 24,000 children with disabilities in 2007. This
number is much lower than the 3.5 million estimated by NGOs, UNESCO, and even the Ministry of Labour. Tanzania does not have any specific policy that explicitly expresses the government’s standpoint for IE. Although the 1995 Education and Training Policy and the 2002 National Disability Policy (NDP) do state that inclusion in education as a goal and all children, including vulnerable groups, should have access to basic education, the overall policy fails to live up to the definition of IE used in the discourse of today and no guidelines are available to illustrate how IE should be implemented in the country. For example, the policy mentions neither Braille, sign language nor any other form of alternative communication in the discussion of language options in education.
Despite a lack of clear national policy for inclusive education, there is a unit for Inclusive
Education within the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training(MoEVT), which is responsible for implementing a pilot IE program in primary schools. The definition of “children with special needs” adopted by MoEVT is quite broad. The term includes “those with different kinds of disabilities, slow learners and those who are exceptionally gifted”. The goal of MoEVT is to educate children with special needs alongside their peers at the local schools. The ministry has cooperated with NGOs such as ZAPDD, MKEZA and WHY to promote IE in mainstream schools. Over 1,500 children with special needs have been registered in these projects. Together with NGOs, the unit also tries to involve communities in the IE implementation process. For example, forums on special needs education (SNE) with teachers, parents and community leaders were arranged by MKEZA (Aga Khan Foundation, 2007). Funding of special needs programs is available from the Tanzania government. Institutions, typically NGOs or local schools or municipalities, provide a budget of planned actions to Ministry of Community Development. The ministry would then consider incorporating the proposal in the governmental budget.
Currently children with disabilities in Tanzania receive education mainly through integration in mainstream classes. The term ‘integrated’ instead of included implies that while CWD attend ordinary classes, their special needs are not catered for. IE is rarely covered in the teacher training colleges so teachers typically do not have the skills to cope with education for the CWD outside of the mainstream curriculum. According to the MoEVT in Zanzibar there were only seven schools with classes adapted to children with disabilities in 2004, with a total of about 2,000 children with special needs. One of these schools, the Patandi Practicing School, provides children with Braille materials and has rooms equipped
for education of children with disabilities. Special Needs Education is mainly provided in urban areas of Zanzibar, and even there inclusive education is not practiced on a large scale or to a substantial degree. There are two schools in Zanzibar, the Patandi and Morogoro teacher colleges, that train teachers in special education. In cooperation with the Ministry of
Education, three colleges also offer courses adjusted for the visually-impaired. On
the mainland, the University of Dar es Salam offers a few IE elective modules in the teacher
education.
Regarding infrastructure, currently schools that are physically equipped for children with
disabilities are scarcely available in Tanzania. Building codes are not strict, “There is
a new Construction Bill prepared but it is not decided. And it does not include accessibility
anyway”. Even so, implementing building codes is difficult because of a lack of coordination between ministries and, as claimed by government, because “contractors are conservative, they do like they always did”, meaning they are not too attendant to new specifications. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are used in some private schools but not in any government schools. The Tanzanian government does not have the capacity to analyze the needs or to develop technologies that are appropriate for CWD; however,
there is an ICT for Basic Education Policy which specifies that MoEVT should ensure ATs are provided to CWD. However, basic technologies or aids pertinent to special needs education such as glasses, crutches, and Braillers are lacking. Access to special materials for education of CWD also appears to be insufficient. Not specifically aimed at IE, general efforts are being made to use the Internet for alternative teaching and learning resources as a part of the Education Quality Improvement Program. However, in 2006 only 12 schools in Zanzibar had Internet access.
To facilitate inclusive education, alternative curriculums have been developed by the Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE) which is responsible for pre-school, primary, secondary and teacher education curricula. A special curriculum exists for the mentally impaired as well as training for “simple trade skills.” In 2006, there were 13 centres with alternative learning serving about 500 learners with special needs. Attempts have been made to change the general public’s negative attitudes toward children with special needs through deeply-rooted religious institutions such as Youth with Disabilities Community Program in Tanga, Tanzania. The awareness raising approach used in Zanzibar by the MKEZA
program has reached over 4000 persons of different demographic characteristics (Aga Khan
Foundation 2007). In short, many IE issues are addressed in Tanzania on a small scale. However, national level coordination is missing and there are strong disagreements even as to the number of disabled people in the country. |
