Over the past few years, a slow but deeply polarising change has been taking shape in Tanzania’s public primary schools. The national policy banner celebrating fee-free basic education, Elimu Bila Ada, is displayed on school walls, yet an increasing number of public primary schools have taken another route: English-medium instruction, with parents paying out-of-pocket fees.
The Chanzo earlier reported how this trend has left educational stakeholders rattled and sparked debate over whether these schools violate the core tenets of the fee-free policy, and whether the government is actively perpetuating class differentiation in our educational system.
These vital concerns were essential to launching our new empirical study, recently published in the international journal Cogent Education, co-authored with Dr Danstan Dioniz Bigenayesu and Prof Mwajuma Vuzo.
We wanted to go beyond the headlines and analyse the structural phenomenon at the root of this development: what are the actual determinants sustaining a fee-based model within a supposedly fee-free public system?
Policy vacuum
The education system in Tanzania is marked by a significant gap between national education policy and its local implementation. The government is committed to making basic education fee-free.
Yet public schools must implement market-driven cost-sharing arrangements to survive, given the concentrated socioeconomic demand for English-language competency.
READ MORE: Stakeholders Rattled As More Govt Primary Schools Transform Into English Mediums
There is no single national policy or regulatory framework for public English-medium primary schools, so individual schools must navigate this terrain in a policy vacuum. This decentralised institutional supervision can result in higher operational demands in determining local fees and parental contributions, leading to the localised commercialisation of state infrastructure.
The public education system is now beginning to institutionalise differences between fee-free and fee-paid public primary schools, with children being segregated according to their household’s ability to pay. The result is a profound threat to educational justice rather than an act of social equalisation.
Pragmatism
The rationale for introducing fees in these specific public schools seems entirely pragmatic. Our research uncovered several key structural determinants that sustain this fee-charging reality.
Operating a high-quality English-medium school requires a fundamentally different infrastructure, which is, in general, more costly to run. The cost of specialised textbooks and modern teaching and learning tools is high, as are the costs of intensive teacher upskilling.
Without a central government budget set aside for public English-medium schools, school fees and parental contributions become the only viable approach to resource mobilisation.
READ MORE: In Tanzania, English Is Not Just a Language. It Is a Whole Religion
As budgetary constraints collided with the expansion of these schools, a clear policy drift towards cost-sharing between the state and households emerged. Fees are being leveraged locally to manage overwhelming enrolment demand, maintain manageable teacher-to-student ratios, and sustain instructional quality.
For decades, parents who wanted English-medium instruction for their children were forced to attend expensive private schools. By creating a lower-cost, fee-charging public alternative, the government created a middle ground, offering a “premium” public service to parents willing and able to pay, thus reducing the number of pupils transferring to private schools.
Public schools are now evaluated through a market lens, and parents equate English proficiency with social mobility. When it comes to linguistic capital, parents are willing to pay fees in a public school system, indicating that market forces and parental preferences are essentially replacing the fundamental logic of fee-free public schooling.
Public system divided
This model may be effective for cost recovery at schools, but it poses a serious policy dilemma. The purpose of public schools is to level the playing field. A public school system operating a fee-free track in Kiswahili and a fee-based track in English compromises the very core of educational equity.
It means a child’s access to the dominant language of global commerce and higher education within the public sphere is suddenly dependent on their family’s socioeconomic status.
READ MORE: Govt Should Stop Perpetuating Class Differentiation in Our Education System
This situation also risks creating an internal resource and talent drain. If fee-based English-medium public schools are perceived as higher status or better managed, they risk attracting the most proactive parents, the most qualified teachers, and the best administrative attention, leaving Kiswahili-medium public schools further marginalised.
We cannot disregard parental demand. The desire for children to speak fluent English reflects economic realities. However, the government must manage this hybrid model with extreme caution to prevent structural inequality from entrenching itself inside the public education system. Our study proposes three critical policy recommendations.
The path forward
First, the government must establish clear institutional and regulatory frameworks. Currently, there is no specific policy for public English-medium primary schools, and immediate policy action is needed to establish clear institutional arrangements that regulate fees and parental contributions, prevent exploitation, ensure transparency, and uphold baseline affordability.
Second, Kiswahili-medium primary schools must be strengthened. Alongside improved teaching materials and equitable resource distribution, the government must raise the bar for public education by enhancing teacher preparation, particularly in English. This ensures that students in Kiswahili-medium schools still develop strong, competitive English proficiency.
Third, the government must invest heavily in large-scale professional development programmes to systematically improve the skills of English teachers and general English teaching capacities in Kiswahili-medium primary schools.
In the end, English proficiency should not be a luxury or a paywall at public schools. Our aspiration must be the elevation of quality across the entire public system. The right to high-quality language acquisition is the right of all Tanzanian children, not just those whose parents can afford to pay.
Dr Muhanyi Nkoronko is an educationist, researcher, and policy analyst specialising in educational planning and administration. He’s available at muhanyinkoronko88@gmail.com. He is available at muhanyinkoronko88@gmail.com. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
