The impact of community education centres on rural development in Tanzania.

This study is concerned with the impact of community education centres on the lives of the people in the rural areas in Tanzania, socially, economically and culturally. For a very long time major emphasis in many countries has been on the development of things and not on the development of MAN. Such tendency was seen especially in the towns so that the rural areas, where the majority of the people live, were neglected. A big gap was created so much that many people moved from rural areas to urban areas. In Tanzania, however, especially after the Arusha Declaration in 1967, the system slowly started to change in recognition of the fact that more than 95 per cent of the people live in the rural areas. Socialism and Rural Development and Education for Self-Reliance were among the most important policies aimed at developing the rural areas. The first rive Year Development Plan. did not take into consideration the problem of the rural areas. However, the Second Five Year Development emphasized the development of the rural areas. In response to the above policies a number of projects were started with a bias." towards rural development. Among the projects was the establishment of community education centres in villages by the Ministry of National Education and were aided by the World Bank. It was hoped that by a strategy of integrating different social services, conditions in villages would improve. The main problem had been that there was not yet adequate integration between the school and the community in terms of planning; and organization of various development activities. Eight community education centres have been set up in selected Ujamaa Villages in Dodoma Region. Each district has at least one community education centres have set up in selected Ujamaa Villages in Dodoma region. Each district has at least one community education centre. Mlokwa Barabarani is an ujamaa village with a population of about 3,112 people. The community education centre established in this village has been taken as a case study for the purpose of looking at the i pact of such a centre with integrated social services on the lives of the people. The objective of this study was threefold: 1. To find out the effects of the community education centre on rural development in its various dimensions economic, social and cultural. 2. To find out the response and reaction of the people to the establishment of the community education centres 3. To find out the extent to which the community education centres are self-reliant. Three hypotheses were formulated to facilitate field work research.1. The establishment of the community education centres has actually improved and raised the standards of living of the people socially and economically. 2. Community education centres have influenced people's perception, initiative and participation in the various developmental programmes.3. Community Education Centres have influenced much change in the live of the people in the aural areas. The first chapter of this study introduces the general theme of "community development" and the background to the problem. The second chapter is concerned with the survey and review of the wider literature related to the problem. The third chapter deals with the research methodology and techniques employed in the field study. These include participatory observation; interviews; questionnaires; documentation of records. The respondents included the Chairman of the village, the Centre' s leader who is also the village Manager, all the co-coordinators of different departments the community education centre villagers selected from the different committees as well as non-committee members s, standard seven pupils and some standard seven schools leavers. Together with the brief history of village, chapter four surveys the conditions of the people in general in general before the community education centre was established. Chapter five is a survey of the conditions of the people after the establishment of the community education centre in 1974. Chapter six attempts to assess whether there has been any impact at all, socially, economically and culturally. Chapter seven gives the whole summary of the study, the conclusion, and some recommendations based on the finding.