by Ben Taylor

TSh 1.77tn plan for the 2028 double-cohort transition
The government has announced large-scale preparations to accommodate a “double-cohort” wave of students. Under the recently revised Education and Training Policy, Tanzania is compressing its primary school cycle from seven years to six, establishing a compulsory ten-year basic education model. Consequently, students who started Standard One in 2021 will finish primary school at the exact same time as those who started in 2022, creating a massive student bottleneck.

To prevent a total infrastructure collapse when these two cohorts hit secondary school simultaneously in January 2028, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa announced a TSh 1.77tn (around £500m) infrastructure plan. The government estimates that a record-breaking three million students will enrol in Form One that year.

The state is also proactively moving away from the old concept of having one secondary school per ward, aiming instead to ensure that every single village has secondary education infrastructure.

The allocated funds are already being deployed across the country to construct 23,226 new classrooms, 46,632 pit latrines, and 9,366 laboratories. Beyond physical infrastructure, the budget accounts for a massive human resource push, clearing the way for the recruitment and training of 40,192 new teachers over the next two years to prevent catastrophic student-to-teacher ratios.

Expansion of the vocational secondary stream and “skills-first” reforms
Tanzania is altering its national curriculum to pivot away from purely academic, rote-based learning in favour of a competency-based approach. A key part of this reform splits ordinary secondary education into two distinct pathways: general education and vocational education. Under the latest rollouts, students can now formally choose a stream that aligns with their personal career aspirations, allowing them to study technical fields directly within standard lower secondary schools.

The Ministry of Education revealed that the implementation of this vocational stream has accelerated rapidly over the last four months. By the end of March, the number of lower secondary schools reportedly implementing these specialised technical tracks jumped to 158. To sustain this momentum, the government has injected roughly TSh 88 bn into building 103 specialised vocational schools, dozens of which are already fully operational.

To ensure that the quality of technical instruction matches international standards, the state has begun sending cohorts of Tanzanian tutors abroad for advanced technical training. Simultaneously, partnerships have been forged with domestic private sector firms to co-develop curricula for highly practical trades like aluminium glass fitting and metal fabrication. The ultimate goal is to ensure that students exiting the formal school system possess immediately employable skills that match the requirements of the country’s booming construction and industrial sectors.