The Availability and Quality of Teaching and Learning Materials

With regard to the teaching and learning materials, the government realizes that quality education is enhanced by the availability of teaching and learning resources (URT, 2001a). These materials include textbooks, teachers’ guides, maps, black boards, chalks, science equipment (kits) and atlases just to mention a few. Textbooks are most important instructional materials in any educational institutions, not least in primary schools because they transmit what is in the curriculum. It is accepted that their evenly distribution in the classroom enhances smoothly teaching. Among the different roles

played by the textbooks in the classrooms, includes provision of information to be used in academic work by students (Neke et.al.2004).This fact has been recognized by the government, which realizes that that there is acute shortage of textbooks and other instructional materials in most primary schools. Thus, it has put emphasis on the production and supply of those materials in the schools (URT, 1995).

Indeed it is well stipulated on the PEDP document, that quality education is enhanced by availability of relevant teaching and learning materials in schools. Towards this end, the government committed itself to the provision of textbooks in schools and sets in itself a target that by 2006 pupil- to- book ratio of 3:1 (URT, 2001a).

Despite the above commitment, here are responses from informants concerning the availability of teaching and learning materials and textbooks. One informant from the Coast region lamented:

The supply of text-books is not satisfactory in many schools due to the massive enrolment of pupils. This makes the whole process of teaching to be difficult (Interview teacher August, 2006).

Another respondent from Dar es Salaam region had same observation:

I have a class of 100 pupils with only 10 books; here the ratio is 1:10. Such a shortage is making teaching very difficult (Interview teacher July, 2006).

During the fieldwork, I witnessed and observed this situation in one of the schools I visited. The class had 110 pupils with only 9 text books. This meant a ratio of 1:12. This hinders effective teaching as few pupils had access to the books. As a result, the teacher concentrated on few pupils who had books. The rest of the pupils carried on with their own activities; like sleeping, do other subjects, teasing one another and the like. This was especially to those pupils who sit at the back of the class as the teacher could not pass through due to overcrowd classroom.

Regarding the shortage of text-books, another informant teacher from Dar es Salaam continued:

Pupils do share the available books when they are in the classroom only. The situation is like this: a pupil will have the book for some days before she/he passes it to another. The problems arise when some pupils become absent for sometimes. This makes other pupils not to be in a position to use the book. This situation may reduce pupils’ interest in reading (Interview teacher July, 2006). Furthermore, both the 2003 and 2004 PEDP reviews found that the pupil-book ratio varied across regions, councils and schools; and between different subjects and classes in most of the school visited (URT, 2003; URT, 2004b).

Davidson carried out a research on several schools in Morogoro region about the progress of PEDP in Tanzania 2002-2004. In the visited schools he found that very few were near to the ratio of 3:1as stated by PEDP. Davidson (2004) explains that:

In fact, one of the greatest complaints from students and teachers is inadequate textbooks at the ratio of 10:1, or even only 1 book for a whole class. Teachers often borrow textbooks from neighbouring schools for specific subjects due to total lack of such textbooks (Davidson, 2004:117).

In addition to the textbooks problem, unpredictability and the timing of funding the schools as envisaged under PEDP was another crucial challenge. Not only do funds not come on time at schools, but they are also ever insufficient! Speaking on this matter, the head of school from Dar es Salaam region highlighted:

The challenge of the PEDP is this; we are not receiving money at the right time. In this case, we are not going to have teaching and learning materials at the right time. Therefore I take the responsibility of buying teaching and learning materials through a loan from the bookstores. This situation affects teaching/learning environment (interview head of school July, 2006).

In line with this, teachers comment that since the inception of the PEDP there has been an increase in teaching materials, but this increase is far from adequate, and is also limited to some subjects; like science subjects still do not have teaching materials. Concern was also raised about the quality of the teaching materials. It was claimed that some of these materials are of low quality and often irrelevant in the context of Tanzania. For example: in one of the school visited it was commented that, the new atlases that were provided to the primary schools were of very poor quality and completely inappropriate in Tanzania.

For instance, key features like sources of rivers and lakes were not shown in the atlases. This has been hindering proper teaching as it is the only material which is easily available for teaching geography. Worse still, was the fact that the old atlases which were suitable were not available. Against this background teachers warned if the teachers do not posses background knowledge of the specific topic, pupils would be denied access to the intended knowledge.