Lead Researchers: James Habyarimana (Georgetown University), Deon Filmer (World Bank), Jacobus Cilliers (Georgetown University), Aneth Komba (University of Dar es Salaam), Isaac Mbiti (University of Virginia), Kitila Mkumbo (UDSM and Twaweza), Ken Opalo (Georgetown University), Shwetlena Sabarwal (World Bank), Youdie Schipper (Amsterdam Institute for International Development and Twaweza), Richard Shukia (University of Dar es Salaam), Andrew Zeitlin (Georgetown University)

Key Institutions: Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation, Twaweza, the University of Dar es Salaam, and the World Bank

The education reforms in Tanzania came about after a rapid decline in student achievement in the county: a 2011 study found that only 30% of students could read a basic Kiswahili story and do basic math. Between 2006 and 2012, the pass rate for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) declined from 70 to 31 percent, and the pass rate for the Certificate of Secondary Education Examination (CSEE) declined from 89 to 34 percent. To stem and reverse this trend, nine specific government initiatives aimed at fast tracking the improvement of the quality of education service delivery are introduced via BRNED.

The team views the systems-level theory of change underlying the reform initiatives under five mechanisms: (a) changing accountability environment, (b) building a coalition to enact and sustain the reform, (c) motivating teachers, (d) re-orienting the education system to focus on learning outcomes and (e) improving school financing and management practices.

Taken together, the initiatives present a plausible theory of change for improving learning outcomes:  strengthening incentives to produce learning outcomes, boosting teacher morale, increasing the focus on basic and remedial education, and providing schools with managerial and physical inputs needed to respond. As evidence thus far has suggested, individual initiatives focused only on single inputs or outputs have mostly been insufficient to improve learning outcomes. The reform initiatives provide an excellent springboard to take a systems-view on education in Tanzania because the reforms were jointly and simultaneously implemented by an array of stakeholders, drawn from both state and non-state institutions.  These reforms engage actors at various levels:  parents and voters, head teachers, teachers, and district and regional administrations. The suite of reforms provides each of these stakeholders with stronger incentives and improved means to achieve results.

Such an ambitious reform entails not only a shift in resources but also a change in the responsibilities between different stakeholders in the school system. Going beyond the new allocation of resources, the impact of the different policies will not necessarily be equally shared across schools and pupils. Thus, equity concerns arise and it is important to measure if different types of children benefit differently from the reforms. To this end, the team proposes to collect detailed demographic and socio-economic data during the household surveys, as well as school facilities and access to resources during the school surveys.