Literacy & Girls' Education Nonprofit at Work in Tanzania

Room to Read Tanzania works with the government to scale efforts that ensure the best results in primary school literacy education. Our work also safeguards girls’ rights to quality education, supporting them to stay in school, improve their standard of living and contribute to national development.

Low attendance and transition rates

Tanzania has shown great progress in establishing quality primary education where access, completion and equity have all improved. This is largely due to the Fee-Free Basic Education Policy, which makes education compulsory until the age of 15. The World Bank shows that from 2015 to 2018, primary school enrollment rose by 17 percent and secondary school enrollment increased by 23 percent. In addition, there was a 39 percent increase in student retention through primary school.

Despite this progress, attendance rates and transition rates remain low from primary to secondary schools. Based on UNICEF data, net attendance drops from 81 percent to 28 percent from primary to lower secondary school. In upper secondary school, there is only a 3 percent net attendance rate. While this is partially because education is no longer compulsory, students are also forced to drop out of school to enter the labor force or early marriage.

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Tanzania’s gender gap

While the gender gap has narrowed, still only 38 percent of upper secondary school students are girls. The World Bank also reflects on the persistent discrimination toward women and girls that remains in terms of housing conditions, gender-based violence, employment, ownership of assets and access to clean drinking water and sanitation.

Along with cultural prejudices, where boys are favored to girls when it comes to school enrollment, female students struggle with inadequate sanitation facilities in schools and pressures from families to marry in order for the families to collect dowries and have children early.

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