FROM THE FIELD

Mott MacDonald: Building Systems of Quality for Education in Tanzania

By Kate Thomas, Education Advisor

Cambridge Education, a member of the Mott MacDonald Group, is dedicated to ensuring that all children can receive a high-quality education. We work with governments and educators across the globe to improve learning outcomes, enhance skills, and enrich the lives of the children and young people in their countries. EQUIP-Tanzania is a key example of this work.

	Equip-T promotes girls’ education as a priority.

EQUIP-Tanzania is a four-year, GBP 50 million DFID-funded program in support of better learning outcomes at the basic education level, especially for girls. It develops, implements and demonstrates best approaches to strengthen the quality of education and is part of efforts to build an education system that can support Tanzania’s growth and development ambitions. It targets 2.3 million enrolled primary students in 4,452 schools in 1,123 wards, across 51 local government authorities in seven regions.

EQUIP-Tanzania engages with all sectors of government and with schools, parents, pupils and civil societies, drawing on their energy and expertise to strengthen the education system at every level to:

1. Improve teacher performance
2. Strengthen School Leadership and Management
3. Enhance District Planning and Management
4. Strengthen community participation and Accountability
5. Strengthen learning and dissemination of results

EQUIP-Tanzania partners with the Tanzania Institute of Education to develop curricula and materials. As part of the National 3Rs program, Equip-Tanzania contributes to and delivers learning materials to the seven target regions for Early Grade Literacy and Numeracy (EGLN), demonstrating value for money approaches for its large-scale training program. It strengthens school leadership and management with Interventions focusing on the development of practical skills and leadership qualities.

Teachers are given the skills to engage and interest pupils.

Through District Management & Planning, EQUIP-Tanzania works to strengthen the strategic leadership of regions, improve management of local government authorities, and coordinate skills for improved quality of education services. By strengthening community participation & demand for better accountability in education activities, the program further works to generate demand for improved quality of education from pupils, parents and wider community members.

This project, which will close in 2018, has already produced impressive results. To date, EQUIP-Tanzania has trained more than 22,000 teachers, 13,009 head teachers, INSET coordinators, Early Grade Reading teachers and others in instructional leadership positions and has distributed teacher aid toolkits to every school in the support of 335,000 students. It has facilitated the development of 47 annual and quarterly budgets for Local Government Authorities to progress Tanzania’s decentralization strategy. The program has distributed more than 4,000 notice boards and contracted facilitators to work directly with 3,900 communities to strengthen community participation and promote school accountability, and has also overseen the set-up of 4,500 Parent Teacher Partnerships. 

At every level, Equip-Tanzania works to inform, equip and empower – for better decision making, to ensure systems have the capacity and resources to deliver, and that education professionals and communities can fully support learning.

	Student engagement accelerates learning.