Early childhood educational policy, children's learning outcomes, and home learning environments in Tanzania : comparisons between naturalized refugees and local majority groups

Abstract

Over the past five decades, Tanzania has hosted over 2 million refugees, about 200,000 of whom have been naturalized as citizens. Using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory, this thesis considers educational policy as it relates to children of naturalized refugees. It also compares their school preparedness, educational attainments, and home learning environments to those of children from local urban and rural majority groups, in four empirical studies. To understand the macro educational policy context, Study 1 analyzes key educational policies and associated documents. Documentary analyses of key policy documents reveal that current educational policy articulates a commitment to providing equal educational opportunities for all peoples, regardless of their background. However, the associated working documents and action plans do not suggest specific strategic and implementation plans to achieve the stated policy goals. Extant research has documented wide variations in the quality of pre-primary and primary education in Tanzania. Therefore, three primary schools with pre-primary classes of comparable quality were selected from the Kigoma region, which hosts most of Tanzania’s naturalized refugees. Participants included 90 siblings (one in pre-primary, and one in an early primary school grade) from selected schools in urban and rural areas. In-depth interviews of one of each sibling couplet’s parents (n = 45) provided additional detailed information about the children’s home environments. The principals of the three selected schools were interviewed, to gain a deeper understanding of the school settings. Study 2 focused on pre-primary children (n = 150) from urban and rural majority groups, and rural naturalized refugees. Children’s school readiness was measured using the School Readiness Composite of Bracken’s Basic Concept Scale - Receptive. Findings indicate naturalized refugee pupils were more prepared for primary school than were the rural majority group, and that their school readiness was comparable to that of the urban group. Parental education and family wealth were the best predictors of school readiness, and parents of naturalized refugee pupils were relatively more educated and wealthier than were parents in the rural majority group. This is notable, given naturalized refugee pupils’ difficulties with the language of instruction in pre-primary education. Study 3 involved children in Grades 1 and 2 (n = 150) who had completed the Early Grades Reading/Mathematics Assessments (EGRA/EGMA). Naturalized refugee pupils demonstrated higher literacy attainment than any other group, outperformed rural majority children in terms of numeracy, and had comparable numeracy outcomes to those of local urban majority children. In Study 4, mothers and/or fathers (n = 90) whose children had participated in both Study 2 and Study 3 were interviewed, to learn more about home learning environments. Findings indicate that naturalized refugee parents considered education a means for their children to achieve upward social mobility, and protection against recruitment as child soldiers by militant groups in their former home countries. Parents also wanted to ensure that their children were learning in school, and not simply attending classes. Taken together, these studies broaden our understanding of early education and attainment in a sub-Sahara African context, and of the role of education in promoting refugees’ integration into host societies.