Poor Economics by Banerjee and Duflo

With a fairly slow broadband connection at home, I found myself staying up late 1 or 2 evenings a week to read the fascinating online material (e.g. Why do some people starve themselves to buy TVs or not bother to get kids vaccinated?), watch YouTube videos (complete with script) and attempt quizzes that pass for homework in collaboration with 35,000 other students around the globe. Not having to write essays was a big plus, but the multiple choice questions set were searching and the bulletin boards posted showed fellow student's desperate pleas for help and occasional hints. I presume the moderators stop obvious cheating - I haven't encountered any answer sharing online!

edX MOOC course: Challenges of Global Poverty

Despite conflicting international travel and some tired early mornings I'm over the hump and should finish in a few weeks. In theory I will have 12 credits to a degree, although this is where the business model will kick-in as the MOOC organizers try to convert mass online activity into profit, for example by charging for accreditation and certificates that accumulate to recognized qualifications.

Will MOOCs revolutionise the delivery of tertiary education in developing countries like Tanzania? This is a question of great interest, can they bypass the financial and bureaucratic challenges faced by poor but capable, intelligent students? I hope so! This is the sort of initiative that DFID may support in the future, internally we're crystal ball gazing to understand the trends across the whole spectrum of development and ensure we have the necessary ideas, tools and skills to respond to such challenges in the future.

In Tanzania COSTECH the government technology and innovation agency is partnering with the World Bank to launch a MOOC using content from 1 of the major new providers Coursera. It will focus on IT skills and knowledge, seeking to support college students to become employable – a common complaint is that current Tanzanian school and college graduates lack the rounded skill-set that employers seek.

I feel it is likely that there will need to be a lot more adaption of content, delivery models and support mechanism to realize these benefits. Internet access is erratic and expensive, but perhaps more of a barrier will be language and cultural issues for students who may be unaccustomed to student centred, but independent and at the same time collaborative, learning.

We need accountability Mr. President!

Tanzanian President Dr. Jakaya Kikwete looked bemused as we greeted him with a classroom-like chorus; “Welcome to the education lab, Mr President!”

The education 'laboratory' was one of six that government leaders visited in a conference facility on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.  Down the corridor, other labs were thrashing out topics including water, agriculture, energy, transport and revenue collection; collectively six (with education) priority sectors that need to dramatically improve performance and quickly deliver results needed for Tanzania's sustainable growth and poverty alleviation.

The 2012 census charts a booming population - up a staggering 10.5 million to around 45 million people in just 10 years.  With the population projected to double in just another 26 years, that's a lot more schools, roads, water pipes, electricity and food needed just to keep up, let alone create jobs and economic growth that can lift many more Tanzanians out of poverty.

The Big Fast Results initiative is a Malaysian concept that uses labs to bring together around 30 sector experts from a range of backgrounds to work collaboratively together for 8 weeks.  They diagnose constraints, identify strategies that can quickly improve the situation and then construct detailed implementation plans and budgets to deliver tangible change in the coming two years.  The process is being led and facilitated by a team from the Malaysian Prime Minster's Performance and Delivery Unit PEMANDU that under Chief Executive Officer Dato' Sri Idris Jala have achieved impressive results in their home country and are now eager to share the approach in a productive South – South Knowledge Exchange.

South South Leadership Exchange

A key lab concept I learnt was that in 'labspeak' we typically plan from 30,000 feet (high up in plane, no detail), but that a 3 feet plan (a very detailed large scale map, skimming the surface) is needed to make sure responsibilities are properly assigned and understood. Equally important is political buy-in to budget, release and monitor government funds to implement the plans. In week 3 of the lab I was astounded to see that the Vice-President came on Monday, the Prime Minister on Wednesday and a full presidential delegation on the Friday -  this was unlike any education planning event I had been to before!

Absent Teachers Piechart

Will it work or fizzle away to pipe dreams?  Well the sceptic in me was pleased to see the right issues being raised and some promising solutions proposed.  Teacher motivation is very low and leads to average teacher attendance rates of only 50% as a recent survey showed, no wonder student exam results have plummeted.   Both the President and the PEMANDU CEO welcomed low cost accountability measures (Tanzania has joined the Open Government Partnership under Dr. Kikwete).  Empowering headteachers with toolkits to let them truly lead and manage schools was proposed, balanced with publicly ranking school performance using traffic light colour schemes and scorecards.  Measuring the basic learning '3R' skills of early grade students and offering remedial classes for those who had fallen behind also makes a lot of sense, but how will teacher training and extra study be rapidly organised and paid for?  Telling was another poster that highlighted the volume of funds, both government and development part that needed to be 'unlocked' from red tape that for two years had impeded the development of new community secondary schools.

Within another 5 weeks of the labs to run, I hope that the detailed, achieveable 3 feet plans emerge without crash landing and that the political leadership and goodwill generated can translate into action that can re-energise Tanzania to deliver for its people.  Spending a long time in South East Asia before my current 'DFID Africa' days, I have seen the Asian tigers in action and it will be most welcome to see the best of their approach be translated into transformative action for Africa.  Our regular sector dialogue and planning process has felt jaded and perhaps too driven by western donors at times, so perhaps this is what's needed to get homegrown action that the government and people of Tanzania can believe in?

I wouldn't be fair if I didn't mention the fact that DFID is assisting to finance the Big Results Now! Labs, following a visit President Kikwete made to see the Malaysian approach in action.  We hope that it can inject some life and accountable results delivery into the Tanzanian development scene.   Hopefully I'll be able to report something 'big and fast' in the not too distant future!

Burj Khalifa

DubaiCares is major emerging development funder, with an already impressive array of primary education programmes across 25 developing countries. They were generously hosting a global task force meeting on Learning Metrics; what all children should learn and how it can be measured globally. The education Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 have helped to get many more poor children into schools and decrease gender gaps. However the rapid expansion of school systems in many low income countries has resulted in appallingly low levels of learning. I recently posted on exam and UWEZO test data in Tanzania, the inconvenient truth is that many children are leaving school unable to read and hence learn, evolve and prosper. Last week Tanzanian secondary Form IV (O level) results also shocked the region with low and falling pass rates, in contrast to the rapid recent growth in enrolment.Current international tests such as PISA and TIMSS help to benchmark, diagnose and compare the learning of teenagers, but very few developing nations participate as most of their children would drop off the scale. At the task force meeting more fundamental levels of learning - such as being able to read with comprehension and perform arithmetic were proposed, together with possible new composite measures of 21st century learning in technology and citizenship for all young people. Gauging basic learning might sound simple, but to compare across diverse national systems and languages is not straightforward. Take a glimpse at the erudite reports emerging from the Brookings Center for Universal Education if you’re not convinced!

Even more difficult will be to convince the political leaders in 2015 to agree to global measures that commit nations to reform and improve their school systems and be graded by the demonstrable skills of their children, not just the volume that can be crammed into bare classrooms. Some countries rightly feel apprehensive about such comparisons, just as children get sick with nerves prior to examinations.

High level political meetings are already being convened on the post MDG agenda, with the UK, Liberia and Indonesia currently co-chairing. The learning metrics group aim to provide technically and politically feasible solutions; if and how they will be taken up remains to be seen.

Before flying out I rose before dawn to be At The Top - the 124^th floor viewing platform of the 828m high Burj Khalifa. An eerily silent futuristic lift whizzed me up vertically over half a kilometre in just one minute. I watched the sun rise over the desert, gleaming spires and artificial world island map that have made Dubai famous. However the morning paper announced a new pretender - the 1.2km Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, which may eclipse the mighty Burj Khalifa by 2018.

Kids in primary school in Tanzania. Picture: Paul Whittingham/DFID

A more important competition is to raise the excellence and innovation of our children’s learning, so all may reach their full potential. In the champions league table of learning we see the likes of Finland, S. Korea, Hong Kong and Shanghai competing to develop the best global talent, with the direction of travel, like the global economy, drifting east - as Sir Michael Barber has reminded us.

Meaningful learning for all children matters especially in the developing world, to provide a strong foundation for poverty alleviation. Global learning metrics and targets can potentially provide a powerful tool to reduce the huge and growing gap in achievement that currently exists. I hope our political leaders can put learning at the heart of the post 2015 agenda: Education First! - as proudly proclaimed by the  UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

A primary school teacher answering questions in her class. Picture: Neema Kambona/DFID

You know that heart stopping feeling when you crest the first peak of a big roller coaster as it goes into free fall? That feeling of dread is perhaps only equalled by the torture of opening up your exam results - at the time it seems your whole life might depend on the hidden grades inside!

In the UK last year, GCSE (Grade 10 for 16 year olds) pass rates finally were reported as having ‘dropped’ for the first time ever by an 'under whelming' half of one percentage point, reversing a decades long upward trend. Many have commented that exams, and increasingly interwoven coursework, have become easier to pass - 'grade inflation' - potentially to allow more students to enter tertiary education. There were howls of protest and legal challenges this year over how the pass mark for English GCSEs were being adjusted and its effect on grades and students' career prospects.

Over the Christmas holidays, Tanzanians were shocked and bemused to receive the outcomes of the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) taken by students around 14-15 years old in age and are usually considered necessary to enter secondary school. National pass rates (grades A-C) were reported as having plummeted from 57% in 2011 to 30% in 2012, that’s almost halved - not one half of a percentage point drop. It was reported that in two rural Western regions that 48 schools had no students pass at all. However, not all failing students face ruin. It appears that entry requirements into secondary school will be relaxed, as the government continues to expand access to secondary education (enrolment rates have tripled since 2005).

Secondary school enrolment since 2000

Exam results can be used for different purposes to filter out students for a limited intake into more advanced levels of education or as an absolute measure of competences. Major changes in pass rates are not that unusual if one looks at Tanzanian results in past years, but this one does seem unexpectedly large and has left many people scratching their heads for solutions. If failing students are being sent en masse to secondary schools, is the problem merely being shunted up the system?

Did the switch to automated marking of multiple choice questions cause confusion or did it prevent cheating? For an exam taken by close to a million students the benefits of automation are clear, in previous years teacher training colleges stopped lessons for weeks as trainee teachers were co-opted in for marking by hand. Were the questions or curriculum made harder, or the grade boundaries adjusted? If you have any ideas please let me know; we are also discussing with government colleagues for possible explanations.

MDG 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education

Over the past decade the emphasis in developing countries has evolved from education expansion - 'bums on seats' in pursuit of the MDG 2 on access - to all children learning at school (or elsewhere).  Clearly examination pass rates are one measure of learning; as posted earlier, other approaches such as civil society led testing of children on basic literacy and numeracy skills now provide useful alternative measures that demonstrate disturbingly low levels of ability in children in Africa and South Asia. We face a real challenge to determine how best to support Tanzania's children to learn. Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE) pass rates are one of the key indicators agreed to measure progress between the UK, other development partners and government, but in this instance it appears our tape measure or stopwatch may have malfunctioned!

Lessons under the tree

Curiosity finally got the better of me and I stopped by to chat this morning and hand out some sweets for the children. As usual, Agnes was spending the morning home schooling her children; aided by a blackboard and a hand drawn map of Africa.

As I suspected Agnes trained and practiced as a teacher, before running foul of regulations. She's lived for several years under the tree illustrated and clearly has a low regard for bureaucracy and rules that now no longer apply to her. Despite clearly being homeless and a 'family in need', it appeared that her children are relatively well nourished and healthy (I was asked for an anti-malarial bed-net) and that the home (or perhaps homeless) schooling was doing the trick.

Her children spoke English confidently and I suspect were probably getting a better rounded primary education than many in formal schools - if UWEZO's child literacy statistics are to be believed. At least the teacher was showing up regularly - which is not always the case according to one recent local survey.

The lesson to me was I suppose that education comes in all shapes and sizes and formal schooling isn't always the solution. I spent some time this week discussing how funds from Global Partnership for Education might support Tanzanian children and the relative merits of formal and non-formal delivery.

Whether Agnes's approach is a step too far in the non-formal direction must remain to be seen. Something to mull over during the Christmas break..

'Youth and Skills: Putting Education to Work

I attended the local launch of the UNESCO Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2012 on a sultry Friday morning at Tanzania's National Museum. This year the thematic focus was on 'Youth and Skills: Putting Education to Work'. It included a well crafted discourse on the importance of giving all young people access to skills, which led to a lively debate.

Foundational skills are needed by youth who have missed out on basic education or attended schooling of such low quality - a sad but common phenomena in Africa that many cannot effectively read, learn or calculate. Most also need to strengthen their transferable skills, such as more generic abilities to problem solve, teamwork, communicate and so forth. Finally, technical and vocational skills assist in direct preparation for jobs both formal and informal - the majority of young Africans do not have the luxury of salaried jobs or welfare assistance of any sort.

The report makes an argument for certain western countries to redirect 'recycled' aid provided as tertiary scholarships (for developing country students to come and study aboard) and use this instead for building skills capacity within countries. An example cited reported that for the cost of a single scholarship to Japan, 229 young people could have accessed secondary education in Nepal.

Over the last decade the Department for International Development's (DFID) support in education, and that of many donors, has largely been targeted towards the drive for universal access to basic education, to some extent at the expense of other EFA goals such as youth learning and combating adult illiteracy. The somewhat crude, but still sensible, counter argument goes that educating kids properly in the first place is the most efficient way to get the foundational and to some extent transferable skills in place early. In Zimbabwe (where I worked until recently) the school system collapsed in 2007, but adult literacy was still well over 90% and skilled Zimbabweans educated in the 1980-90s remain in demand all over the world.

Picture: Martin Middlebrook 2012

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) recently released a critique of DFID's operational plans Equity and inclusion for all in education and as The Guardian's Global Development reported, called for 'a clear strategy to ensure equity and the inclusion of all marginalised groups across all the countries in which it (DFID) works'. GCE notes the work DFID is doing on gender inequities in education - the Girls Education Challenge Fund is about to launch major initiatives in ten countries - but urges for more coherent support for marginalised groups, in particular the disabled.

I would personally comment that GCE's perspective, while there is more to do and the report is helpful in reminding us of the inequities that prevail, it is perhaps unrealistic in what it expects DFID may achieve. Enrolment rates (if you can measure them - a big if) for disabled kids, disadvantaged ethnic minorities, religious groups, nomads and urban street kids are usually far below that of mainstream, able bodied children in many societies and no amount of support and policy work is able to easily impact this hard reality. This somewhat harsh reality is clearly articulated in the Global Monitoring Report 2010: Reaching the Marginalised. DFID's operational plans outline support proposals for some of the poorest countries on earth, but are not blueprints to run those countries; funding available from donors and countries own budgets is limited and hard to deploy effectively, even on more easily identifiable objectives.

Programmes and innovate pilots also get DFID support and permeate out to demonstrate better practice and challenge stigma, usually without UK branding. When I lived in Kano, Northern Nigeria, it was impossible to ignore the plight of the Almajiri - street boys who live away from homes with spiritual leaders (mallams), reciting the Quran and begging for food. The Education Sector Support Programme in Nigeria (ESSPIN) introduced simple secular study and feeding for some of these deprived boys, which promotes tolerance in a region now riven by an extremist insurgency.

Being disabled myself I take a lot of interest in inclusive education in developing countries - the reality is disturbing. Inclusive education policies are not too difficult to develop from a template based upon those of western countries where resources are measured in the thousands of US$'s per child and society is generally supportive. But talk to the parent of a hearing impaired child and they may tell you the last place on earth they want their child enrolled is in a mainstream government school where neglect and perhaps bullying are the only lessons on offer. Special needs schools and general inclusive awareness for all teachers are part of the answer, but in rural Africa the support needed for meaningful learning is not actually present for many 'regular kids'.

Portrait of an albino child, Wikipedia

I supported research into inclusive education needs in Vietnam a few years ago and was told, in a remote ethnic minority village, that no child in a school of around 500 students used or needed glasses. The 'spectrum' learning difficulties that are trending in the West are certainly not on the agenda in areas such as rural Tanzania where belief in evil spirits and witchcraft lead to albino children being excluded and even killed for ritual purposes. Talking recently to the head of Tanzania's education statistical unit, he agreed that his data was unreliable and that whilst disabled kids were reported as making up only 0.3% (28,000 of 8.2 million) of the 2012 primary enrolment,  it wasn't possible to estimate the disabled population out of school or to target them in such a vast country.

Aspiring to reach all children, however disadvantaged or marginalised is of course worthy, but at times the 'inconvenient truth' of how societies are, and how they evolve, means that change will come slowly and in patterns not predictable by development actors.

"An educated Ujamaa Village, for example, will neither allow nor tolerate dishonesty among its accountants or authoritarianism among its leaders. An educated population will challenge the actions of its elected representatives, including its President."

- J, K. Nyerere (1967) Adult Education and Development

The Department for International Development (DFID) has inherited a somewhat unusual assignment - to support the Tanzanian government to purchase and distribute millions of textbooks (and lots of school desks) using funds resulting from a multi-million pound settlement between the UK Serious Fraud Office and a large company that provided an air traffic control system to Tanzania.

Going the last mile

In the spirit of Nyerere's wise words on education, we've been busy supporting a major tender exercise to be sure that the process and audit trail are all above board. However, the task to get a big stock of textbooks to all of Tanzania's 16,000+ mostly rural primary schools is complex. Centralised mass procurement exercises can fall down going the 'last mile' - stocks may be left rotting in warehouses or get diverted onto the black market for example. Crowd sourcing the monitoring of local distribution looks an attractive option with the government committed to widely publicising the book distribution plans.

Great experiments to monitor rural service delivery are being piloted in Tanzania, blending technological data systems with citizen empowerment measures to realise Nyerere’s vision of holding the government to account.

For example Population Services International (PSI) Tanzania have innovated with SMS messaging and digital GIS mapping to track condom stocks in local vendor’s shops (duku) and availability of anti-malarial drugs in clinics. To incentivise responses free mobile airtime scratch cards or credit is given once the response is received. Positive results of SMS for Life have included major reductions in stock-outs of life saving drugs and the generation of detailed maps of service coverage. However challenges have been encountered with getting the incentives right to sustain accurate, regular reporting and building human capacity to exploit the information generated.

SMS for Life. Picture: Population Services International (PSI) Tanzania

UNICEF also managed an excellent, high impact textbook distribution campaign whilst I was in Zimbabwe using UK aid and other donor support. One idea that was trialled here was to get SMS text messages confirming book delivery back from school heads. A toll free number and guidance was given but the response rate was low. Visits to over 500 schools did confirm the books got out and were being put to good use, but this did take up staff time, vehicles, fuel, etc. We need to understand why this happened and learn from it - is it a question of incentive?

I'd love to see this sort of approach used to support 2013's mass distribution of school textbooks. I'm attracted by some kind of variant of PSI's use of free airtime - ideally with a telecoms sponsor partner - to provide the incentive for a response from a school representative or concerned parent and near real-time digital mapping to assist the government in quickly spotting and dealing with problems. Given the origins of the finance, it would be disastrous if the process was tainted by corruption or abuse.

Any suggestions most welcome please from the blogosphere!

What gives me confidence is that the Tanzanian government, people and business community share our goal for a successful book campaign and the blocks are falling into place. Government data is increasingly open and online. Tanzania's Science and Technology Commission: COSTECH has a dynamic business incubator for technology and application development start-ups. Civil society champions are already engaged in piloting cutting edge apps to promote accountability.

Great programmes or lesson learning will be showcased at the forthcoming Open Up! conference in London on 13 November 2012. This UK aid, Omidyar Network and Wired Magazine collaboration will highlight technology to open up and enable millions of citizens across the world to hold decision makers to account and change lives.

A wide range of schemes will be discussed including:

• Twaweza (We Can!) funded by UK aidd, supports a variety of initiatives including UWEZO (East African learning outcome surveys), information liberation mechanisms and citizen response survey panels.
• DARAJA will be highlighted to learn from the challenges in tracking rural water pump planning and operation with real time data.

The Open Up! conference will bring together entrepreneurs, government and civil society to galvanise action in the fast-growing field of open government, to show how web and mobile technologies can drive more engagement of citizens in government and showcase entrepreneurs’ innovations and experiences from around the world. You'll be able to join in at www.openup12.org or by following #OpenUp12 0n Twitter.

Laidback commuting. Picture: DFID

Historically, Tanzania has been considered less dynamic in comparison to its east African neighbour Kenya - both in its economy and school system.  In education terms the secondary school enrolment rates were below 10% until only a decade ago.  This has tripled in recent years as DFID and other development partners backed the Government’s expansion plan with budget support to help finance new schools and additional teachers.

As has been observed elsewhere in the east African region - such as Uganda when it abolished primary school fees in the 1990s - the ‘growing pains’ of rapid expansion has manifested itself in congested classrooms, inadequate skilled teachers and very low examination rates;  less than 10% of candidates got a Division I-III pass in the Form IV secondary examinations in 2011.

One aspect in which Tanzania is anything but sleepy is in the sphere of citizen’s accountability around education and broader delivery of social services.  A combination of savvy Tanzania advocacy champions and development partner support has enabled mass children literacy and numeracy surveys, which are completely autonomous from the school system.  

Twaweza, is a citizen-centered initiative supported by the UK Government, focusing on large-scale change in East Africa. The name is a kiswahili word that means “we can make it happen”. They have supported the rollout of learning surveys known as the Uwezo initiative in Tanzania.  The idea originated in India, where the Pratham movement introduced community run tests and present a massive national report to government annually. Comparable data has also been collected in Kenya and Uganda and the findings present disturbingly low levels of competencies amongst children.  Results also vary enormously between countries and between regions, districts and schools, this also generates huge interest in the underlying factors that drive real learning and what should, or should not be, going on in schools.

The theme for this year's global Blog Action Day, on the 15th October, is 'the power of we'. Twaweza is just one example of the 'power of we' in action - citizens using data to hold governments to account.  The findings of course raise alarm bells, activists and some parliamentarians in the Bunge now challenge the status quo and highlight the need for major education reforms.  Some elements of the Government dispute the findings and validity of the Uwezo tests, but the data does seem to confirm the failings outlined in government documents further down the assembly line of Tanzanian education - low pass rates and a dearth of skilled labour.

I think Uwezo’s approach has the potential to spread further in Africa and assist everyone involved in education to focus on the product – children with demonstrable skills, rather than the money, teachers and books that are input into the system.  A lot of thinking is now going into the next generation of MDGs - international post-2015 targets.  Almost inevitably they will need to reflect this tide of opinion - that it’s the learning going on that counts.

Open Up!

Next month DFID is co-hosting (with the Omidyar Network) an exciting conference called Open Up!, which will help governments use technology to open up and enable millions of citizens across the world to hold decision makers to account and change lives. Entrepreneurs, government and civil society will come together to galvanise action in the fast-growing field of open government, to show how web and mobile technologies can drive more engagement of citizens in government and showcase entrepreneurs’ innovations and experiences from around the world (more details to come in my next blog). You'll be able to join in at www.openup12.org or by following #OpenUp12 on Twiter.

Mouth brooding Cichlid, Lake Malawi/Nyasa

While the UK basked in the glory of Team GB's medal haul at the London 2012 Olympics, I spent a week driving up from Zimbabwe to Dar es Salaam, to start my new assignment as DFID’s Education Adviser in Tanzania.

The highlight en route was definitely seeing the cichlid mother fish in Lake Malawi (Lake Nyasa), that suck up their offspring into their mouth as danger (i.e. me scuba-diving) approaches. The BBC’s Planet Earth captured this and other amazing scenes from this huge freshwater body back in 2006. The only hiccup on route was with my car's paperwork at the Malawi-Tanzania border, but with a cold Tusker beer and Olympic beach volleyball on the bar TV, a six hour delay quickly melted away as the problem was slowly resolved! 

Tanzania Parliament- Bunge

Before the dust could settle in Dar es Salaam, I was at once dispatched 500 km inland to the actual capital of Tanzania - Dodoma, where the Parliament known as the Bunge was in session. The event was the annual education budget debate, which I witnessed in the magnificent modern parliament chamber, complete with a 'Speaker of the House' and ceremonial mace - all being beamed out live on TV.

Trainee Tanzanian Teachers

It was a real pleasure to observe parliamentary democracy in action, with the government presenting its budget plans and the opposition and Bunge social sector committee MPs retorting with pointed criticism and demands for action around delayed  teacher salary bonuses, strikes and plunging examination results and education quality (sounds familiar?).  Perhaps most telling were the anecdotes MPs cited from the advocacy group Haki Elimu (Right to Education) that over 5,000 new secondary students were identified as being completely unable to read nor count.

Tanzania has clearly made great progress over the last decade, with impressive cuts in child mortality and school enrolment surging. However familiar factors such as surging population growth, high unemployment, bureaucracy and the slow pace of change are all very real constraints.

Science Teachers in short supply

DFID, together with other development partners, will be working collectively with the Government of Tanzania to find solutions to the issues raised in the Bunge - especially on improving actual learning outcomes for Tanzanian children.

Visiting the Bunge was an ideal introduction to the country and an impressive display of parliamentary democracy in action. I really look forward to living and working in Tanzania, to experience the incredible natural beauty and hopefully to support the reversal of the recent plunging schools' examination scores!

Mother and Child Rock, Matobo's Park

My two year secondment to the European Union (EU) Delegation in Zimbabwe has flown by and once more I am packing my bags, this time to drive up to Tanzania - to support the DFID education programme from Dar Es Salaam.

Living and working in Zimbabwe has been immensely rewarding, it's been a pleasure to see the country re-awakening from the crisis of the last decade – in particular the schools reopen with children learning using the flood of textbooks the UK and European aid has provided. The natural wonders have also been amazing.

Getting to know both ordinary and extraordinary Zimbabweans – such as the dedicated Education Minister Senator David Coltart - has been both enriching and humbling; how they have survived and carried on in the face of crisis never fails to amaze me.

My sincere wish is that Zimbabweans do manage to find some lasting political settlement in the coming years and that elections predicted for 2013 don’t return the country once more into a humanitarian crisis. 

Thanks to all who have helped me work and live in Zimbabwe!

Best wishes, Ian