Poverty and Human Development Report 2009 - UNDP in Tanzania

POVERTY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2009
Social Protection
MKUKUTA pays particular attention to groups of people who might be considered most vulnerable
and who may not be accessing essential services: children engaged in child labour; children with
disabilities, orphaned children, and the elderly.
One-quarter of rural children and 8% of urban children work in conditions deemed to be child
labour. Most child labour is time-excessive; children perform domestic chores and help out on
the farm for such long hours that it may jeopardise school attendance or performance.
Only 40% of children with disabilities attend primary school, an attendance rate which is less
than half the rate for Tanzanian children overall. This information comes from TDS 2008, the first
rigorous national survey of disability in Tanzania. Results clearly show that monitoring by MoEVT
and school authorities needs to be strengthened; as numbers of children with disabilities in
school reported in routine data are much lower than indicated by TDS 2008.
Schemes of social protection frequently target groups of people who might be considered most
at risk of being poor. However, if ‘categorical’ targeting approaches are to be used, they must be
designed and applied carefully to avoid both exclusion and inclusion errors in social protection
interventions, which can lead to community discord. For example, as reported by THMIS
2007/08, school attendance among OVC and non-OVC are very similar. In addition, HBS 2007
paints a mixed picture of the vulnerability of the elderly, with the poverty rate among households
with elderly persons only well below the national average. However, at the same time, the HBS
revealed that less than one-fifth of elderly people who consulted government health services did
not pay for health services under the exemption policy for people aged 60 years and over.
Cluster II Implications for Monitoring
Education
A comprehensive review of educational indicators is warranted so that all sub-sectors are
adequately covered. Uniting the two former education ministries into the single Ministry of
Education and Vocational Training has streamlined the administrative and management machinery
of the sector but further work is required to ensure harmonisation and publication of information
about results.
The following recommendations are made to further strengthen the national indicator set:
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i) Indicators for primary education are strongly represented in the current indicator set, but
indicators for the other sub-sectors are limited. The absence of data for TVET is a glaring
omission. The task of identifying and collecting a small number of relevant indicators
for monitoring purposes for TVET would be significantly eased if all such training took
place under a single national qualifications authority, bringing together the Vocational
Education Training Authority and the National Council for Technical Education, as has
been recommended in recent annual sector reviews. The contribution of Folk Development