The impact of user charges on access and equity in public secondary school in Tanzania: the case of Dar es Salaam and Coast Regions.

This study examined how user charges affect access to and equity in selected public secondary schools in Dar es Salaam as well as Coast regions. It was necessitated by the need to determine the impact of cost-sharing measures introduced by the Tanzanian government in recent years. The study draws upon the human capital theory as well as related literature in economics of education, economics of health care and development economics. The study has four research objectives related to user charges to admission, attendance, fairness distribution and allocation of educational recourses as well as choices for which child to enroll at public secondary schools. Quantitative approach was utilized for data collection from, 6 purposively selected school heads, 108 randomly selected students and 35 randomly selected teachers from six public secondary schools in urban as well as rural locations. The qualitative approach was also utilized to collect data from school heads and class-teachers. The documentary method provided admission trends (1997-2001) and dropout rates in 2001. The study found out that there was no significant increase in admission to form one especially in boarding schools. Findings also revealed that user charges negatively affect attendance in schools. However, findings suggested that user charges do not influence dropouts as well as repetition in schools. Furthermore, findings suggested that user charges could not ensure adequate availability of educational resources in schools. On the other hand, findings indicated that user charges influence the choices for which child to enroll. Findings suggest that imposition of user charges is likely to be neglected if the charges are not adequate to permit noticeable improvements in service quality. Even if a system of user charges was to permit a sufficient improvement in service quality, it is unlikely to be sustained if it results in large inequalities of service utilization.