A study of the tutors and student teachers involved in the non-residential teacher training programmee in Tanzania.

The National Executive Committee of Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) met in Musoma in November 1974 and directed that universal primary education should be implemented by November 1977. In issuing the directive, the National Executive Committee knew that training enough teachers for universal primary education would not be easy. The Committee therefore suggested that cheaper but equally effective means of training the required teachers be found. In order to implement universal primary education, the Ministry of National Education required 40,000 teachers. That number could not be accommodated by the existing teacher training institutions. At the same time the Ministry of National Education could not increase the residential colleges because of lack of funds. The Ministry of National Education, acting on the National Executive Committee’s directive that cheaper means of training teachers be found, adopted the non-residential teacher training programme. The Ministry of National Education needed 2,400 tutors for the non-residential teacher training programme. That big demand for tutors could not be met. The alternative was to turn to the residential teacher training programme. The residential programme had also a shortage of tutors. Due to the shortage of tutors, it would have been impossible to take the few serving ones from the colleges in order to offer residential in service education and training without closing some of the schools and thus disrupt the education of many children. The Ministry of National Education therefore resorted to the use of the divisional and ward adult education co-ordinators as tutors for the non-residential teacher training programme. The co-ordinators were formerly primary school head teachers and teachers promoted to adult education co-ordination due to outstanding academic professional competence in primary schools. Competence in primary school teaching was taken to mean competence in teacher training. Such an assumption was likely to affect the quality of the non-residential teacher training. Qualitative teacher training required qualified and trained teacher trainers in addition to intelligent student teachers. That was lacking in Tanzania due to the rapid expansion of primary education that was not in line with teacher expansion. The primary school expansion necessitated employing unqualified and untrained teachers. The use of unqualified and untrained teachers tended to lower the quality of education resulting into falling educational standards had for a long time been a subject of discussion by critics in various circles including the National Assembly. Party Conferences and educational Seminars. The launching of the universal primary education in November 1977 that lead into mass scale no-residential teacher training was likely to result into low quality teacher output. Low quality teacher output would be detrimental to Tanzania’s economic development particularly because primary education was both basic and terminal. The study therefore looked into the type of tutors and student teachers involved in the non-residential teacher training programme with the aim of predicting the type of teachers expected from the programme. In the study, three instruments were used to solicit information on the tutors and student teachers involved in the non-residential teacher training programme. The instruments were documentary review, questionnaires and a test. Documentary review was used to gather information on the academic and professional background of the non-residential teacher training programme in Dar Es Salaam region. Questionnaires for the non-residential tutors and student teachers were designed and administered to the tutors and student teachers respectively. The questionnaire were administered personally by the researcher. The tutors questionnaire collected information on the tutors views on the non-residential teacher training programme. The student teachers questionnaire gathered information on the student teachers backgrounds and the overall assessment of the non-residential teacher training programme. A test was also designed and administered to the student teachers to find out the student teachers academic performance in the non-residential teacher training programme. The study found out the following things:- (1) the countries that had implemented universal primary education according to the review were all faced with a shortage of primary school teachers. The shortage therefore necessitated employing untrained and unqualified teachers. (2) The non-residential tutors were not originally and specifically prepared for teacher training. (3) Some of the tutors were not academically competent in the non-residential teacher training programme. (4)The non-residential tutors had many responsibilities that rendered the tutors less effective in teacher training. (5)The selection of the non-residential student teachers did not follow the prescribed selection procedures. (6) The non-residential student teachers had many responsibilities other than teaching that were likely to affect the student teachers learning. (7) The non-residential teacher training programme lacked instructional materials needed for qualitative teacher training. (8) The curriculum for the non-residential teacher training programme was inadequate for qualitative teacher training. On the basis of the findings it was concluded that the non-residential teacher training programme was unlikely to train good quality teachers needed to implement universal primary education.