Education in Tanzania: The Future

Welcome to Part II of this post on Education in Tanzania. In Part I, I asked:-

What are the challenges currently faced within Tanzania’s Education sector?

I talked about the sector’s key challenges, with specific focus on gender, equity and access inequalities, graduate unemployment, education quality, resource constraints and emotional wellbeing.

In Part II, my question will be:-

Which trends present future opportunities for Tanzania’s Education sector?

How far should our expectations for the future of Education in the Global North be reflected in sub-Saharan Africa and Tanzania? To what extent is this future ‘digital’? Will the sector ‘leapfrog’ traditional developmental curves and start embracing the benefits of technological change immediately?

Population and connectivity growth

The global population is expected to exceed 9 billion in 2050, with half of this growth expected to occur in Africa, according to the 2015 UN World Population Prospects [1].

Combined with improved infant mortality rates, this growth will increase the under-15 population, which today stands at 41% of the total population of Africa. The 27 most under-developed countries in Africa will also produce some of the highest fertility rates [1].

Sub-Saharan Africa has the fastest-growing school-age population of any region in the world — for every 100 primary…