INTEGRATING HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES TO ENHANCE STEM SUBJECTS IN TANZANIA PRIMARY EDUCATION

Abstract

The Tanzanian primary education came into a rapid expansion after the introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 1974, aiming at equipping every child with the basic primary school education. Since then, there have been major development plans in the education sector in terms of an increased number of schools, improved infrastructure, and improvements in the education policies and curriculum. Some of these plans include; The 1997 Education Sector Development Program (ESDP), the 2001 Primary Education Development Plan (PEDP), the Sustainable Development Goals Tanzania Development Vision 2025 (SDGT), Big Results Now (BRN) and Education and Training Policy Five Year Development Plan (2016–2021). One of the goals stated in the SDGT 2025 vision is “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all”. The primary education sector advanced more with the increase of privately owned schools. Statistics show that these privately owned primary schools rapidly increased in number from only 426 schools in 2009 to 1,564 in 2018 which is an approximately 267% increase in just 10 years. In accordance to reports by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), currently, the total number of primary schools owned by both the public and private sectors has reached 17,967 (NBS, 2018 & NECTA, 2018). Despite the increase in the number of schools, regular policy reviews and improvements in curriculum, the education sector goals have not yet been attained at a remarkable pace. Learning content has no enough ability to equip students with extra skills to match with the 21st-century world. Ahmad (2015) analyzed the adopted curriculum for Tanzania primary schools which is basically equipped with theoretical learning content. There is no enough defined hands-on activities or practicals integrated with learning. The analysis shows that subject with hands-on activities are mainly home economics and very little with science subjects. Studies have indicated that integrating theoretical learning with practical learning can subsequently improve the students’ level of understanding. The research conducted by Allina (2017), mentioned one of the benefits of hands-on activities is to stimulate pupils imagination into reality, promote students creativity and social empowerment and thus improving the level of understanding the subjects. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are among the core subjects in the education system. In Tanzania, these subjects have been perceived to be the most difficult subjects. Some initiatives and projects have been introduced to address the negative perception towards STEM by most of students. Most of these projects involves the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools to develop content and games for learning. Although these projects may have successfully help students to perform better, the general drawback is that they are not fully incorporated in the curriculum and incorporated in the curriculum. STEM subjects can be equipped with a lot of hands-on activities, experiments, and practices to support theory content and improve the 21st-century skills of students. This paper aims at exploring the presence or absence of learning clubs in primary schools, outline possible hands-on activities which matches with the STEM subjects content and propose a way to integrate with the education system in Tanzania.