CITIZEN EMPOWERMENT IN THE MANAGEMENT OF EDUCATION AT THE GR(3)

In 2000, the government of Tanzania undertook an overall Education Sector Review Programme, with the major focus centred on primary education. This was followed by the launching of the Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP) in 2002, aimed at improving education quality, expanding school access, and increasing school completion at the primary level. This involved measures to increase resource availability and improve resource allocation and utilization; to improve educational inputs; and to strengthen institutional arrangements for effective primary education delivery by particularly empowering the stakeholders at the grassroots (United Republic of Tanzania, 2001). However, while there is high consensus on the fact that citizen empowerment in the management of social services in particular, education has a significant potential for enhancing accountability and local participation in public sector service delivery, it is not quite clear about the degree to which it contributes to improved service delivery or performance at the grassroots level for that matter.

 1.4 Statement of problem
With the recent reforms in Tanzania, the primary school committees have been strengthened to manage and oversee the day to day activities as well as planning and implementing various development activities for their respective schools.  Basically, the reforms are meant to mainstream the local communities into the management of education that had for many years been centralised. Empowerment of school committees seeks to enhance local ownership, democracy, inclusiveness, accountability.  Each school committee represents citizens at the local level in deciding and implementing different activities at their respective school.  However, there have been some challenges with regard to the functioning of school committees. It is not quite clear about the extent to which the school committees have been empowered.  Yet, interference and arbitrary use of powers against school committees and teachers by some political leaders is a clear sign of inadequacy of the powers conferred to the grassroots levels.  For example in February this year, the then Bukoba District Commissioner in the north-western part of the country caned some teachers for ‘failing to execute their duties in accordance with their job descriptions’ (TBC[ Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation], February13, 2009). This implies that although the primary school committees in the country have been conferred powers to make decisions on matters related to supervision of routine and development activities in particular schools at the local levels, there is no practical demonstration of citizen empowerment at the local level. It is not clear as to how this empowerment has affected the performance of school committees. In addition, there has still been some problems in as far as resource mobilization and control in some schools. This situation signals some problems in the functioning of the school management systems at the grassroots level.  It is on these grounds that I decided to conduct this study to explore the functioning of the school committees, particularly, their empowerment and how this affects their performance.