COBET was mainstreamed into Tanzania’s Primary Education Development Programme.
Today COBET centres exist in the 21 regions of Tanzania Mainland in 113 districts. A
distinction is now made between the COBET pilot project (supported by UNICEF and
other stakeholders), and the Government programme, MEMKWA, which is funded by
PEDP resources. Today stakeholders such as UNICEF still support COBET pilot districts
and provide physical and technical support to MEMKWA programme implementation. 45
CFS – The Child Friendly Schools (CFS) learning approach is a pilot strategy aiming to
ensure that all children enjoy learning so that they can develop their individual potential.
In child-friendly schools there is no corporal punishment and the schools are gender
sensitive. They aim to involve parents and school communities in both the teaching and
learning process. The child friendly concept is broadly taken up in the PEDP. Schools
have been established in 6 pilot districts with a total of 62 schools. The objective of the
pilot is to generate good practices and advocate for their inclusion in mainstream schools.
Some of the achievements of CFS include: increased community participation and
support to school education and other initiatives; improved relations among teachers,
parents and learners; teachers’ skills improvement; abolition of corporal punishment
abolished; increased attendance and improved enrolment and retention.
Secondary education - In response to the very low enrolment secondary enrolment rate
(around 10 per cent) the Government has initiated a Secondary Education Development
Plan (SEDP, 2004-2009) which aims to increase secondary school enrolment to 50 per
cent by 2010 and includes special measures to facilitate girls’ enrolment. The
Government has been supporting girls from poor families to continue with secondary
school education through a special programme known as Girls Secondary Education
45
Constraints and Challenges of COBET include; Difficulty to ensure quality of COBET through PEDP
implementation process in all districts of Tanzania Mainland given inadequate financial, physical and human
resources; Absence of community participation in the national COBET scaling-up process; Absence of direct focus on
girls and other vulnerable children educational needs in the national COBET scaling-up process; Absence of a clear
understanding of what makes certain children vulnerable and how it manifests in their behaviour.
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