Education is an investment in human capital whereby through education people realized that education is the key to the future success of an individual level and national level. During this 21st many countries have made their choices to allocate more resources to finance education as part of human resource development. When it comes at family level, education is contributing more to increase social and human capitals in a society in which people live. At another corner education can also be an investment producing an outcome which helps to push a person from a certain step to another in the society [1].Tracing back the history of education after independence, the government of Tanzania has been making several efforts to provide quality education. According to Tanzania’s Education Act which state that, “all children above the age of seven must attend and complete compulsory primary education. Under current regulations, any parent or guardian who fails to ensure a child is enrolled in primary school commits an offence, and may be liable to a fine or imprisonment of up to six months. Under the Law of the Child Act, children have a right to education, including a right to acquire vocational skills and training, and parents have a duty to ensure children can realize this right”. In order to ensure all children acquire basic education in 2014 the government came up with new Education and Training Policy, this policy officially launched in February 2015, has declared 10 years of free and compulsory basic education, whereby six years of primary education, and four years of junior secondary education [2]. The policy also allows the dual use of both Swahili and English as languages of instruction in secondary schools, removing a prior policy to only teach secondary education in English.

The current education system of Tanzania emanates from the Education and Training Policy of 2014 which indicates that the structure of the formal education and training system will be 1 -10 - 2 - 3+. This means that 1 year of pre-primary education; 10 years of basic education; 2 years of advanced secondary education (Forms 5 and 6) and 3 or more years of higher education. The official school attending age is 5 years for pre-primary, 6 – 15 years for basic education, 16-17 years for upper secondary and 18 – 21 years for higher education. However, the Government is currently continuing with a seven-year primary cycle and four-year lower secondary cycle, meaning 11 years of basic education in addition to 1 year of pre-primary [3].

School inspection defined as the specific occasion which takes place when the entire school is examined and evaluated as a place of teaching and learning. However school inspection means the constant and continuous process of guidance which based on frequent visits which create more attention as well as more aspects of the schools and its organization [4]. School inspection is an important role towards the establishment of good practices in schools. Inspection is usually initiated by agents external to the school. These agents play a great role in an academic issues such as the use of suitable teaching and learning materials for a specific topic. It also contributes to the continuous improvements of the quality of education offered by the schools. However School inspection ensure better enhancement for the standards in education. Inspection is always initiated by agents external to the school. They also ensure that effective and appropriate teaching methods are used. Whereby once deficiencies have been observed, they often recommend the use of remedial actions. 

The history of school inspection basically originated from France in 18 century under Napoleons regime. Later on, school inspection idea spread to other European countries in the 19th century. In case of Britain (England), the first inspection services were carried out by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate. School inspection, was conceived as one of the forms of accountability in education. Other forms of accountability in education included the market choice as practiced in United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Also, the school voucher system in America, Chile, Colombia, and in England [5].    

School inspections in Tanzania started to be practiced during the colonial regime. Soon after its independence in 1961, the Government of Tanzania under the late Julius Kambarage Nyerere formalized different school Education Acts with the purposes of shaping the provision of education and improvement of education quality in Tanzania. The Education Act no. 25 of 1978 among other things included the establishment of the school inspection system and inspection inspectorate. In compliance with this act school inspection in Tanzania is under eight zones where school inspectorate can be found. Those zones are the Eastern zone, Northern zone Eastern Zone, North Western Zone, Lake Zone, Southern Zone, Central Zone, Western and Southern Zone Highlands. Actually zonal school inspectorate structure helps to reflect the structure of school inspectorate in the ministry of education [6]. 

The management of school inspections in Tanzania is done and organized by the school inspectorate. School inspectorate is one of the eight departments managed by the current Ministry of Education Science and Technology but the higher learning institutions is not under school inspectorate. On the other hand school inspectorate has the responsibility to inspect schools from primary to secondary education as well as vocational training colleges. One among of the school inspectorate is to conduct a full inspection of each school in the country after every two years. Basically school inspectorate in Tanzania is headed by the Chief Inspector of Schools (CIS), who reports to the Chief Education Officer (CEO). The Chief Inspector of Schools is supported by four sections namely management, primary education, secondary education and teacher education each being headed by head of section.

School inspection practices especially in developing countries like Tanzania are associated with various obstacles which as a result make the issue of quality control as one of the most critical for all aspects. Provision of quality education in Tanzania over the past few decades become inseparable and disorganized from access to education. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2000s stated that by 2015 there could be an improvement in all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills [7]. The goal can only be achieved if primary and secondary education are adequately inspected, supervised and monitored in a good manner.

The main issue for primary and secondary education in the developing countries is no longer quantitative expansion concerning their main goal in the 1960s-1970s but rather arresting the trend of rapid deterioration in quality education. Tracing back the 1990 Conference on Education for All (EFA) at Jomtien in Thailand, chartered the 1990s as the decade of educational quality improvement [8]. Whereby the identification of successful systems and modalities of school inspection and supervision to be used , as a model for directing systems and restructuring existing ones for developing appropriate models of training to support the search for qualitative improvements in education sector that especially in basic education.

Despite of all efforts from the government the quality of education is still grim. This is due to ineffective school inspection. In recent years students have been scoring low marks in National examination, most of the teachers teach against the curriculum content and some of the schools are characterized by teachers and student truancy all this happen as a result of ineffective inspection. Always when it comes to school improvement in teaching and learning process actually it depends on quality inspection. Even the quality of the whole school academic program me goes hand to hand with effective inspection process. The general process of school inspection in Tanzanian schools is ineffective and is considered to be more a dictation than an improvement. There are some deep rooted assumptions concerning with the concept of school inspection in Tanzania [9]. It is based on dictation rather than remediation. The establishment of school inspection services in many countries of Africa was accompanied by the introduction of formal public education. Most of the developing countries in the world have expanded their school inspection services after independence. Also, the increased number of schools accompanied with a relatively slower growth in number of supervisor and inspection officers. 

The current situation of Education in Tanzania is threatening as the public is witnessing the deterioration of the quality of education. There is still a massive failures in the national examinations results especially in these last five years. The general education system encountered with poor education infrastructure such as incompetent teachers, lack of motivation to teachers, lack of teaching and learning materials in schools and poor training of teachers are among the factors behind the dwindling of quality of education in primary and secondary schools in Tanzania. Therefore this study dealt on assessment for effective school inspection in basic education in Tanzania to ensure enhancement of quality education.

Significance of school inspection

• It provide feedback to teachers

• Act as the source of advice to teachers

• Used to provide professional support to teachers

• Helps on classroom observation

Features of competent and qualified school inspector

• Should have a good plan before inspection

• Should pay attention on how teachers teach during inspection

• A good School inspectors must give freedom to teachers

• Should help teachers to understand the goals and objectives to achieved by the school

Features of a good school inspection

• Always should use more outdated method

• Should not put pressure to teachers and students

• Should focus on both teachers and students not only teachers

• Should focus on school change rather than report writing

• Should respect the views from teachers 

Guidelines for effective inspecting officers

• Also should base on providing guidance and advice to teachers and students

• To help the head of schools on how to organize of co-curricular programs for better development of the school

• Should deploy check on offenders among the school staff

International and National Context on School Inspection in Basic Education

In the United Kingdom (UK) schools are usually notified the working day prior to the start of a total school inspection. At the same time, educational officers have powers to undertake no-notice inspections in certain circumstances – for instance, when there are serious concerns about issues including safeguarding, rapidly declining standards or the breadth and balance of the curriculum [10]. The whole process of school inspection in England is guided by four categories of overall judgement on a school’s effectiveness which are; Outstanding (means grade one) Good (Grade two) Requires Improvement (Grade three) Inadequate (Grade four). When the school graded inadequate and the school will get transfers to a new sponsor, the school inspection handbook makes clear that such schools will usually receive a full re-inspection within three years. Apart from in Sweden Schools Inspectorate based on four main categories of inspection. The first one deals on the regular supervision, which involves all schools according to a schedule which runs over a couple of four to five years, and this basically focus on legality and equality of education [11]. 

The second category is thematic quality evaluations, which focus on quality issues in particular school subjects or special functions. The third one relies on investigation of complaints from individual students or their parents. While the starting point is the individual child, the investigations may also attend to different systems and functions within the school. The last category on the inspectorate is scrutiny of applications to start independent schools, and inspection visits to newly establish independent schools. In some areas in Tanzania some school inspectors do not provide prior notice if they are coming to visit a particular school, at the end of the day it course more pressure to teachers. Due to this aspect school inspectorate management in Tanzania should rely on this direction like what is going on in Sweden and United Kingdom.

Several studies have been carried out in relation to school inspection and school improvements mostly in England and Wales, In Netherlands and other African countries, both, portray conflict thinking. Some studies argued that school inspectors simply find faults thus there have been many inspection visits in schools but, there is still a little impact on teaching and learning process. Others, cemented that school inspection is a mechanism that press unnecessary additional burden upon the teachers while, teachers themselves know what to do in their career and that emphasis has been on accountability at the expense of professional growth [12]. 

In case of Tanzania, there have been a tendency from the communities and those news from different source of media to blame the school inspectors on the decline of the quality of education in schools. When pupils fail in the national examination results, the society blames the school inspectors suggesting that they did not do their job properly. Tracing back the Mwananchi News Paper which was published on 19 January 2009 titled with poor performance of the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) in 2008 [12]. On other side of the coin, when it comes many pupils pass in the national examination results, all the praises have been directed towards the head teachers and the teachers that they are competent in the key areas. 

Actually the concept of inspection is being emerged in a number of ways due to contextual reasons. For example the Primary School Inspection (PSI) system in South Africa has been considered a negative practice by teachers and other stakeholders, one of the institution of Associate Assessors model in Uganda, the self-assessment as well as peer-to-peer inspection systems being developed in a country like Ethiopia and Uganda [13]. Those acted as great point of resurrection of the inspection system that has been collapsing due to the different difficulties. On the same line the contemporary education in Greece and the other part of Europe as far as structure, organization, programs content and the teachers involved are concerned, is under pressure of change in the current model of function. Under conditions of competition and the maximization of outcome of every activity, assessment plays a great role. Some teachers in Tanzania do not pay consideration on the significance on school inspection. 

Given to this situation it is important for the Ministry of Education Science and Technology of Tanzania (MOEST) to stick out how primary and secondary school teachers, headmasters or headmistresses understand the operation of school inspection and how it influences teachers’ carrier for the great changes in education sector [14]. There have been a tendency to some of school inspectors to mistreat teachers once they go to visit schools. Sometimes teachers do complain on harassment from school inspectors, automatically this accelerate enmity. Some school inspectors in Tanzania are harsh, insult teachers and give them feasible advice and recommendations to teachers. This behavior bring back the development of Tanzanian education, instead of that school inspectors should guide teachers in a good manner accordingly to ensure team work between teachers and school inspectors. However,  some teachers always they do not prepare well, always they prefer to rush their work especially when they hear that school inspectors are coming they prepare the academic documents over-night in hurry just to impress the school inspectors that they are following all guideline. Such documents included schemes of work, lesson plans and subject logbooks. This show that some teachers are using just experience to teach student without following lesson plans .Finally students do not perform well in national examination.

Furthermore, the study conducted by Haule [15] indicates that from randomly selected inspection reports the audit revealed that the problem of poor performance of students was not effectively addressed in the conducted school inspections. In an independent school inspection evaluation report by [16] revealed that the school inspectorate fails to work effectively and efficiently because it is not an independent organization. It seems to serve more the interests of the Ministry of Education Vocational Training (MOEVT) this behavior makes school inspectors to come up with wrong report after school visit. In order to avoid those mentioned scenario school inspectors always should work according to their profession without relying on any side for better improvement in Tanzanian education.

State of School Inspection and challenges in Tanzania

Tanzania has been commended as one of the countries that successfully pursued the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and EFA goals in the last 15 couple of years. Actually evidence of progress made has been a surge in enrollment since the removal of user fees in 2001. The Gross Enrolment Ratio increased up to 85.6%, while overall enrolment was 8,639,202 from Education Sector Analysis. Statistics from (ESA) show that the Gross Enrollment Rate expected to 100% with increased enrolment: 11, 476, 803 million in 2024.  This is estimated to be an increase of 30.5% in 10 years [17]. 

School inspectors confronted with scarcity of resources, at the end of the day their work have often dwarfed the roles of inspectorate departments in many areas across the country. This implies that, school inspectors suffered a lot without been provided with enough funds so as to implement their daily activities and they have been forgotten by the government. For stance the lack of offices, especially in rural areas, has been frustrated by the lack of essential facilities, such as office accommodation, clerical services and support staff for school inspectors, equipment, and stationery [18].

In order to have quality education in Tanzania effective school inspection need to be conducted but this is still a problem due to lack of adequate vehicles that will take school inspectors to and from schools one area to another. In Tanzania school inspectors are often faced with the problem of lack of transport, especially for those inspectors directed to supervise in remote areas. This problem is aggravated by the fact that some schools are located in areas that are very remote to be reached by school inspectors. Further to this, there is a lack of sufficient funds, especially traveling and subsistence allowances, provided to inspectors to meet expenses associated with transport and accommodation. The problem of lack of transport had affected regular and efficient inspection of primary and secondary schools in different corners of the country [19]. The ministry of education should pay more consideration by buying more vehicles which will simplify the working condition over this matter.

Currently there is highly inadequate school inspection and consequently, most of the school inspection in Tanzania does not meet the needs of schools such as, teachers, head teachers, students, and parents. Generally, most of the schools are rarely ever inspected. Furthermore, sometimes school inspectors spend few days in a school and a small number of inspectors in the team, the amount of observation of classroom teaching by inspectors is uneven and disturbingly small [19]. There inspectors do not spend sufficient time for adequate and meaningful inspection of schools and consequently, school inspectors do not seem to obtain a true picture of the state of schools and to reflect on the outcomes of inspection. 

The time spent by inspectors to offer professional support to teachers in schools usually negligible, inspectors spent most of their time solving administrative problems with head teachers, and that teachers never helped as adequately as they should. School inspection in rural areas, always has been frustrated by the lack of essential facilities, such as office for accommodation, clerical services and support staff for school inspectors, funds, equipment, and stationery. To ensure effective and efficiency school inspectorate, all school inspectors must be empowered the required facilities.

Apart from that another obstacle is that school inspectorate department characterized by lack of authority.  Actually this department has no capacity to authority and to enforce the advices they give after inspection. Bad enough once the school does not act to implement the inspectors’ recommendations, the inspectorate cannot hold them accountable. They have to wait the say from the Ministry of education to act.  Actually this has been taking long period of time to ensure that is happening, if it does. It was, for instance, cited that sometimes inspectors pile new recommendations over a heap of many past un-worked upon recommendations. Such piles of recommendations heaped over years make some teachers think the inspectorate is wasting time and finance. 

The duties of the inspectorate are limited to inspection and provision of feedback to managers, agencies and administrators at district, regional and ministry levels. This is in line with inspection guidelines [20], which directed that all duties of the inspectorate are limited to inspection and provision of feedback to all school managers, agencies and administrators at all district, regional and ministry levels. It is a right time for school inspectorate management to have power on decision making, so as improve their working efficiency.

Lack of seminars and Workshop, most of the inspectors in Tanzania need seminars in order to improve their working ability. Those seminars and workshop will play a great role to for them to know many things especially when it comes there is a new curriculum. In developed countries like China always a ministry of education conduct seminars and workshop several times for their school inspectors and teachers from primary to secondary level in order for them to improve both quality of inspecting and teaching skills for teachers. The same to the Ministry of Education Science and Technology in Tanzania (MOEST) should conduct seminars and workshops several times not one time per year to school inspectors and teachers to rescuer the existing situation.

School inspectorate management in Tanzania should improve selection criteria for inspectors. Inspecting schools is an important task which need meticulous as well as objective assessment. Due to that aspect inspectors school inspectors should be very careful on implementing their daily responsibilities. In compliance to that context a special strategy must be administered in order to be able to test the working ability of the candidates to determine their suitability for better prospect results.

Presence of poor communication of the results to education stakeholders, after school inspection the report should be shared to all educational players including parents. In Tanzania the results of school inspection are not effectively and efficiently communicated to various education stakeholders. Parents are very important to share their views depending on the situation. However parents are the customers of the education service are not kept informed about the progress of the teachers and students on teaching and learning process [21]. This mistake make them to have no evidence concerning claims about the results of their children and hence the school retains its original format of leadership without any new progress on students’ academic achievement. 

Additionally when it comes to teachers who are always the curriculum implementers are not given the feedbacks from the findings and possible recommendations to be put in place for their self-improvement. In developed countries like Sweden and United Kingdom parents and teachers are the first key figures to be considered after school visit. In those countries parents always receive reports of what happen in a particular school after school inspection in order for them to provide views for more improvement. In order to improve school inspection Tanzanian school inspectorate management should to give room other educational players to share their views, opinion as well as suggestions like what is going on those developed countries.

This study based on the assessment of effective school inspection in basic education in Tanzania towards quality education .The evidence from related studies revealed that the modality of school inspection in Tanzania is too old. It means that it does not match with the needs of current education of Tanzania, as well as in the globe compared to other developed countries .More ever the school inspectorate management face various challenges such scarcity of resources, lack of seminars and workshop, existence of poor selection criteria for inspectors, lack of adequate vehicles for school visiting and other related obstacles, finally the study came up with recommendations of what should be done.

Recommendations

• The Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MOEST) should restructuring and regulate the education Act of no.25 of 1978 after independence which used to establish the school management inspectorate for primary and secondary education, this is too old and recently many things have changed in education sector

• The government through ministry of education should encourage more regional integration for school inspectors to learn more about school inspection

• For the effective school inspection in basic education, school inspectors need should ensure that teachers feel more relaxed and comfortably in such a way that they can discuss their problems, observations and even suggestions freely with the school inspectors

• Also school management needs to develop strongly school action plans to monitor and measure the implementation of all school inspection recommendations. School inspectors need to monitor and make follow-up inspection to ensure that the impacts of school inspection recommendations are worked upon There is also still a need for improvement in the inspector-teacher relationship

• Education mangers from school management inspectorate should insist School inspectors to use more effective models of communication with teachers once they visit those schoolsThis study based on the assessment of effective school inspection in basic education in Tanzania towards quality education .The evidence from related studies revealed that the modality of school inspection in Tanzania is too old. It means that it does not match with the needs of current education of Tanzania, as well as in the globe compared to other developed countries .More ever the school inspectorate management face various challenges such scarcity of resources, lack of seminars and workshop, existence of poor selection criteria for inspectors, lack of adequate vehicles for school visiting and other related obstacles, finally the study came up with recommendations of what should be done.

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