Which Curriculum Perspective is Tanzania Based? | CT 200
1.
(A)
Education
system is an interconnection of things or procedures to be undertaken by a
learner in order to acquire desirable knowledge. The term curriculum has been
defined in many ways as the complete experience of the student while under the
guidance and direction of the school. It include activities which are academic,
non-academic vocational, emotional and recreational.
Centralized
education system refers to the condition where by the administrative authority
for education is vested, not in the local community, but in a central body.
This central body has complete power over all resources. Money, information,
people and technology. It decides the content of curriculum, control the
budget, and is responsible for employment, the building of educational
facilities, discipline process policies. In most developing countries,
curriculum development is centrally controlled.
Decentralized
Education system. In this system, decision about education occur at different
levels, local authorities, individual states, regional, school etc. this is the
extent to which authority has been passed down to the individual school. Most
of the underdeveloped countries use this system.
Education
system in Tanzania is based on centralized system where all activities
concerned with education matters is done with consultation of ministry of
education and vocational training. The system is divided into several stages of
which provided by both public and private sector. First stage is primary
education which is compulsory for children aged 7 to 14 years. Medium of
instruction at primary level is English, Kiswahili, and English as a subject.
Secondary education level is divided into an ordinary level which intended to
the 14 – 17 aged group and advance level to 18-20 aged group while medium of
instruction is English and Kiswahili as a subject. Higher education is divided
into non university level, for instance institution (technical) vocational and
professional schools and university level.
Curriculum
development and other educational issues are guided by the National Education
Policy and approved by parliament. Tanzania Institute of Education is the main
body responsible for developing the curriculum. It prepare program, syllabus
and pedagogical materials. The curriculum is composed of 12 subjects with the
purpose of developing, competence, critical and creative thinking among
learners.
Also,
all learners write the same examination and are assessed in the same skills.
Learners who pass the examination continue with another level of studies.
Learners perform the national examination in the following class. In primary
school they do it in standard four and seven. At secondary school level they
have an examination in form two and form four, also in form six. Those who pass
the form six examination are allowed to join the university.
Curriculum
perspectives are theories of knowledge which are important source of curriculum
decisions, what goes into the curriculum depends heavily on these perspectives.
There are three types of educational perspectives which are, transmission,
transaction and transformation perspectives.
Transaction
perspective. This perspective create situation where by students are able to
interact with the material to be learned in order to construct knowledge.
Student ability to use this knowledge is to create products of performance that
are solved in one or more cultural setting.
Transformation
perspectives, here teaching have the objectives of transforming learners on
many different levels (cognitive, emotional, emotional, spiritual and others.)
Transformation invites both students and teachers to discuss their full
potential.
Transmission
is an act of transmitting knowledge from teacher to learner. This is the
teacher centered approach where by a teacher is the one who provide knowledge.
Therefore
education system in Tanzania is based on transaction curriculum perspectives
since the large number of methods which is used in all levels of education
system in Tanzania is relying on this perspectives for instance primary
education, the lessons are conducted through interaction as teacher gives the
learners task which gives them a chance to reply to their teacher. For example
the system of counting number, statistic, alphabet, also at the secondary level
there are different transaction method which teachers and student interact. For
example, the use of group discussion, debate, demonstration, question and
answers, brain storming, using of songs and games. According to the institute
of education in Tanzania under consultation of ministry of education and
vocational training teachers should support 25% of the learning activities and
the remaining 75% is for student. Also it is better to know that, all of the
three transaction are used in Tanzania, but the most dominant is the
transaction method and is highly influenced.
1.
(B)
As
defined above Centralized education system refers to the condition where by the
administrative authority for education is vested, not in the local community,
but in a central body. This central body has complete power over all resources.
Money, information, people and technology. It decides the content of
curriculum, control the budget, and is responsible for employment, the building
of educational facilities, discipline process policies. In most developing
countries, curriculum development is centrally controlled. By adopting
centralized education system, Tanzania is both benefiting and losing as
discussed below.
Starting
with how Tanzania is benefiting by adopting a centralized education system.
In
the centralized educational system the ministry draws up in detail the curriculum
for each subject and level of education. Recruitment evaluation and training of
the staff is administered by the ministry of education through different
inspectorates at the national and regional levels and all satisfactory
completion of the school is testified by national exam. Thus there is an
inspectorates or standards centered division is put in place to monitor the
teaching and learning activities. Therefore there is benefit which Tanzania get
by adopting a centralized educational system.
It makes
easy to achieve national goals since all schools use the same documents but not
only national goals also individual and societal needs and goals. These can be
contributed by curriculum which allows learners to interact with environment.
For example in Tanzania, curriculum allows college and university to impose new
faculties and universities to impose new faculties and to achieve the needs and
goals which have been aimed to achieve. For example at the University of Dar es
salaam had introduced faculties, example in history known as philosophies and
methodologies of history. Also in science like agriculture and petroleum
engineering in 2016.
Student
can transfer from one school to another without any obstacles in his/her
progress of education, this is due to the fact that all school in Tanzania use
the same curriculum documents. For example students of form three at Pugu
Secondary school can be transferred to Tabora Boys which is allocated in Tabora
and proceed well with his studies. Also this system helps to prepare both
teachers and student to become more competent whenever they go simply because
they share the same base.
Learning
materials can be mass produced making them less expensive for both producers
and consumers. This means the budget planed from the government where the
government minimize the cost so that can ease the flow of materials around the
school. This make even the schools having low budget to survive while
maintaining the importation of accessing materials.
Therefore
centralized education system is most important curriculum to be adopted by a
country for its national educational uses due to the several benefits explained
above.
Not
only the country is benefitting by adopting centralized education system, but
also the country is losing as proved below;
First,
it is not easy to closely supervise what is happening in the schools. For
example, how consistent is course content across teachers and schools in terms
of coverage, internal assessment procedures, and entrance and exit criteria.
Second,
centralized education system is insensitive to the needs of some groups within
the community, since education provided to the society is uniform but the
society differ from one to another. Therefore centralized education learners
are not involved in decision making. Rather than to implement what government
had decided hence Tanzania losing through learning things which is irrelevant
to the needs of some society. Example, curriculum did not address local needs
that is students does not learn what is relevant to the local community.
Third
rarely are draft publications tried out and then revised in the light of
systematically collected classroom experience because and fore most piloting
curriculum is an expensive endeavor in terms of both human and material
resources. Furthermore, and just as important there are ethical issues to be
addressed because at the end of the day learners have to sit for a common
public examination regardless of whether they participated in a pilot
curriculum activities. In addition it is not easy for individual educationalist
to attempt and undertake curricula innovations through research and development
because schools are centrally managed.
A
certain degree of decentralization is needed but decentralization would not
achieve cohesiveness among schools. It is true that neither centralization nor
decentralization works by themselves. Both top-down and bottom-up strategies
are necessary. Centralization errs on the side of over control, while
decentralization errs toward chaos. School and district development must be
coordinated. Personnel moves, transfers, selection and promotion criteria,
policy requirements, budget decisions, including staff development resource all
take their toll on schools if the relationship is not coordinated. The center
and local units need each other. Schools will get nowhere by swinging from one
dominance to another. What is required is a different two-way relationship of
pressure, support, and continuous negotiation.
REFERENCES
Marsh,
C & Wills, G (1995). Curriculum; Alternative Approaches, Ongoing Issues;
Stoughton
Posner,
G (2004). Analyzing the Curriculum. New York. Mc Grow Hill Publishers.
William
E. Dull Jr (1993), New York; Post Modern Perspective on Curriculum.
Njabili
A.F (1999); Public Examinations; A tool for Curriculum Evaluation. Mture
Educational Publishers.
Ralph
W. Tyler; Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instructions.
