South Africa

A paradigm shift in guiding the operations of open schools in Tanzania: Praxis of emerging controversies and dynamics

“…Clarity of objectives and targets : ANFE policy literature contends that for adult education policy guidelines to garner adequate and long-term support from the established institutional systems and structures, they ought to be specific about achievable targets (Aitchison, 2012; UNESCO, 2013). Notwithstanding, most of the ANFE policies and operational guidelines lack clarity of the set objectives and targets (Shirima, 2016), a situation that amounts to lack of clear programmes’ implementation frameworks.…”

“…Though open schools have largely emerged as a practical solution to several socio-economic challenges such as unemployment among youth and adults, their operations cannot be systematic and sustained without clear policy guidelines for their proper organisation and control of practices. In fact, global empirical evidence, educational reports and general literature suggest that many of the adult/non-formal education (ANFE) programmes in developing countries fail as they tend to be disregarded in the (pre)dominant education policy arenas because they either lack their stand-alone policy or subjection to policy statements’ mismatch (Aitchison, 2012; UNESCO, 2013, 2019). Tanzania, however, has had since independent policy statements aimed to foster all forms of education (URT, 2014, 2018).…”