The “Take All My Friends To School” project increased the access, quantity and quality of inclusive education for children with disabilities through adapting the child-to-child approach to inclusive education.
About this report
Inclusive education in Tanzania has been developing steadily for over a decade. Since 1994, inclusive education was becoming the agreed approach among government officials for children with disabilities. By 2009, inclusive education was formally embedded as a commitment in the Tanzanian education system within the Education Sector Development Programme (2008-2017) and the first National Strategy on Inclusive Education (2009 – 2017).
Despite this progress towards inclusive education, many children with disabilities in Tanzania face substantial barriers to accessing education. In 2018, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology reported that of the total 362,847 children with disabilities aged 4–14 years, 15.5% were refused entry to schools because of their disabilities [1]. At present, negative attitudes towards disability remain one of the most pervasive barriers, however there are several barriers that compound this.
The “Take All My Friends To School” project increased the access, quantity and quality of inclusive education for children with disabilities through adapting the child-to-child approach to inclusive education. The project was delivered with Child Support Tanzania and was funded through the All In, All Learning Programme by Comic Relief & the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) in the UK.
[1] Tanzania Country Report (2018) Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, The United Republic of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Accessed on 10th April 2021