East African Journal of Education Studies

The study on the effectiveness of the free education policy in Tanzania was conducted in fee-free secondary schools in Morogoro municipality. The study was guided by three specific objectives; investigate the implementation of the free education policy in Morogoro municipality, examine challenges facing the implementation of the free education policy in Morogoro municipality and recommend methods for the effective implementation of free education policy in Morogoro municipality. The data were collected by using interviews, questionnaires


INTRODUCTION
The success or failure of policy implementation strongly depends on the interaction among agencies involved in the process (Winter, 2006). Policy implementation requires that those responsible for implementation have a mutual understanding of the objectives of the policy, their respective roles and what is expected of them. To ensure sound working relations between the actors, it is vital that rules and standard operating procedures are in place that describe what one should do, when to do it and how to do it. A "sound working relationship" in this context means a relationship based on trust and reciprocity, which thereby contributes to reducing transaction costs (Putnam, 1988). In a developing country context like Tanzania, resource and capacity constraints are likely to affect the technical design of the reform and the incentives of the involved agencies to cooperate (Grindle and Thomas, 1990).
Policymakers and public managers need a certain number of resources to enable implementation and eventually address counter-reactions against the reform (May 1992). Constructive working relations between organisations require that the involved agencies have incentives to collaborate. Resource and capacity constraints are likely to affect the technical design of the reform and the incentives of the involved agencies to cooperate. Grindle and Thomas (1991) distinguish between political resources and bureaucratic resources. Political resources refer to the support the reform can mobilise from the political leadership. Bureaucratic resources include financial, managerial, and technical resources.
Still, other explanations focus on the autonomy of implementing agents and their unwillingness and limited capacity to change their behaviour (Berman, 1995). Implementing agents fail to notice, intentionally ignore, or selectively attend to policies that are inconsistent with their own (and/or their agency's) interests and agendas (Firestone, 1989).
Policies that fit their agendas are more likely to be implemented, and those that do not are more likely to be either opposed or modified so that they do fit. The implementing agents' ability to ignore policy is in great part a function of the nature of their work, which involves unpredictable human relations not reducible to programmatic routines or easily regulated and monitored from above by principals (Weatherly & Lipsky, 1977). Implementing agents and agencies also often lack the capacity, knowledge, skills, personnel, and other resources necessary to work in ways that are consistent with policy (Fullan, 1991;McLaughlin, 1990).
Lack of stakeholder participation in rulemaking creates implementation difficulties (West, 2005). The environmental policy implementation gap in China is not quite surprising as mechanisms for democratic participation in rulemaking have not been well established. For many years, China's environmental policy pronouncements have been frequently criticised as mere 'symbolic gestures. Recently, the Chinese central government, under pressure from both local citizens and the international community (Li and Chan, 2009), has been active in promulgating environmental laws and regulations, but their implementation has mainly been the responsibility of local EPBs".
A number of implementation processes depend on the forms taken by interactions between relatively independent actors of a particular policy because they are organised based on general institutional rules (applicable to all public policies) and/or other concerns of a regional or local nature.
According to Crosby (1996), the roots of many policy implementation problems experienced in Tanzania are found at the policy formulation stage in the ministry responsible for local governments, reflecting ambiguous objectives, unclear procedures, and inadequate means to implement the policy.
In our opinion, it is necessary to make an analytical distinction between the 'programming' and 'implementation' stages of a public policy, both of which take place, in part at least during the postparliamentary phase.
Policy ambiguity is often a function of coalition and consensus building in the policy development process, but it is also a function of the social problems addressed by policymakers. The behaviours that policy targets for change and the magnitude of the changes sought affect the likelihood of successful implementation; policies that press for incremental changes are more likely to engender a positive response and be implemented (Wildavsky, 1978). In addition, when policy directives pair a clear implementation goal with tractable procedures (i.e., policies that have a valid theory connecting behavioural change to the outcome and an effective and efficient way to measure the change in local behaviour), they are more likely to be implemented, in part because in such cases the principals can monitor their agent's behaviour more effectively and efficiently (Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1983).
Many countries in the world are committed to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals. Within these goals, education has been a major concern of United Nations member countries including Tanzania. It is the commitment of the United Nations Members to ensure available skilled, competent, and educated workforce to champion their socio-economic development, therefore making the world more secure, sustainable, and interdependent (Hanf, 1982). In line with the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal Number 4 (United Nations, 2015), which requires governments to ensure that everyone "completes free, equitable and quality secondary and secondary education, Tanzania like other countries in East Africa Kenya (Khamati & Nyongesa, 2013) and Uganda (Asankha & Yamano, 2011) has made tangible efforts and commitments on Secondary Education. One of the efforts includes the development of the Education and Training Policy 2014 replacing the former Education and Training Policy of 1995.
Education is one of the most important sectors in any nation. It is the responsibility of a government to set and launch a national education policy and participate in setting up international policies on education. Countries have been investing much in education, especially secondary and secondary education, regarded as basic education (Abagi, 1998). Since its independence in 1961, Tanzania has made various efforts to broaden the education service to its people. This is to ensure that education service is accessible to nearly every Tanzanian. In Tanzania, the first effort of Fee Free Education was instigated in 1963 to ensure that majority of Tanzanians get an education and to remove the enrolment gap between poor and rich households. However, during the structural adjustment programme in the 1980s, the fee-free education policy was modified to include a cost-sharing element, whereby parents were required to shoulder some responsibility patterns for the cost of providing secondary education in the country.
In 2014 Education and Training Policy in Tanzania was developed as a key driver for promoting and enhancing Universal Secondary and Secondary Education in conformity with the commitments made by countries as part of the Sustainable Development Agenda (UNESCO, 2015). Implementation of this policy was strongly accelerated by the major general presidential campaign promises by the ruling party CCM in 2015, where Dr John Pombe Magufuli, the CCM flag bearer and the former President of Tanzania, vowed to implement the policy (Twaweza East Africa, 2016). Subsequent steps were made after the launch of the national education policy in 2015, whereby the government made a commitment that from January 2016, pupils would enjoy compulsory 11 years of free basic education from Standard 1 to Form 4. In this endeavour, the policy frees parents from any fees and contributions to secondary education. Moreover, with respect to the implementation of the 2014 Education Policy, the government on November 27, 2015, issued circular number 5, which inter alia provides directives to all public bodies to ensure that secondary education is free for all children, including the removal of all forms of fees and contributions. The Circular states: "Provision of free education means pupils or students will not pay any fee or other contributions that were being provided by parents or guardians before the release of a new circular".
The majority of Tanzanians believe that the abolition of secondary school fees and introduction of free education does not entirely mean free education as parents still pay significant amounts of money for their children's education, in the form of school uniforms, school bags, exercise books, shoes, food and medical care. Due to the inability of many parents to meet this indirect cost of education, dropout, absenteeism and lower grade progression are rampant at all levels of secondary and secondary education. Moreover, there are an inadequate number of desks, textbooks, classrooms, and teachers to match the increase in student enrolment. It was, therefore, the aim of this research to investigate the challenges encountered in implementing the fee-free education policy in Tanzania, to provide suggestions on how the policy could be implemented in a sustainable manner to avoid the possible pitfalls and ensure that the policy delivers what it promises.
According to the Tanzania Education and Training policy released in 2014, the removal of fees in secondary to lower secondary level of education. The implementation of the FFE policy had three circulars. Education Circular No. 5 was issued on November 27 2015, Education Circular No. 6 was issued on December 10, 2015, and Education Circular No. 5 issued on May 25 2016. The secondary aim of these three circulars was to ensure that FFE should be provided to children from secondary to ordinary secondary level in public schools.

Specific Objectives
Under the specific objectives the study was: • Investigate how the fee-free education policy was implemented in Morogoro municipality.
• Examine the challenges facing the implementation of the free education policy in Morogoro municipality.
• Recommend measures to improve the implementation of the free education policy in Morogoro municipality.

Research Questions
• How was the fee-free education policy implemented in Morogoro municipality?
• What are the challenges facing the implementation of the fee-free education policy?
• What measures need to be instituted to ensure the successful implementation of the fee-free education policy in Morogoro municipality?

METHODOLOGY
This study employed the case study design. The study adopted the triangulation method (i.e., the combination of both primary and secondary data collection). The study adopted a case study research design. The target population of this study comprised secondary school heads masters, teachers, and students. Therefore, the sample size made a total number of 78 respondents. The primary data was collected through interviews and questionnaires, while secondary data was through document review. After data collection, all the data collected were adequately checked for completeness. The qualitative data, available documents, and interviews were analysed thematically. The data were checked to ensure that the output was free from outliers and the effect of missing responses was at a minimum.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The goals for fee-free education in Tanzania was to ensure the number of students who access education increased (enrolment), to increase competition among students for better achievement and increase students' attendance due to the lack of school fee. This study engaged in looking to what extent these Fee Free education policy goals have been achieved as intended.

School Capitation Grant
Capitation grant aimed at meeting the educational needs of access and school management. All sampled schools have been receiving capitation from the government for conducting various school activities such as sports activities, construction, renovation, examinations, purchasing teaching and learning materials and administration activities. These funds are given every month by entering into the school's bank account. The use of these funds has been very transparent as teachers must sit in a meeting and prepare a summary to explain the use of these funds and the school committee must be involved in the use of these funds in an official meeting. Money withdrawal by check signed by two signatories and attached with a meeting summary of all the meetings of the teachers and the school board. Students have been getting all the educational services without contributing even the final national examination for finishing the ordinal level. Figure 1 shows the capitation grant from the government allocated to each school as shown.

Source: Field Data
In addition, the effectiveness of financing free education is indicated by whether the funds which are provided by the government are the same as what is expected to be received according to directives. In examining this, head teachers were asked whether capitation grants provided by the government met the requirements. All of them said that the grants they met did not suit the requirements. This was put in various ways, and the following quotation reveals the response of one of the head teachers. to the future national economic growth than investment in Physical Capital and insisted that it is necessary to note that pupils and their guardians should be taken into consideration when making educational and occupational choices. At a national level before investing in any educational project, educational planners should undergo adequate costbenefit analysis.

Increased Students Enrolment
The main reason for abolishing school fees was to enable children from poor families to attend school.
The argument for abolishing school fees is straightforward. School fees and other direct costs that households must bear represent a significant obstacle to enrolment, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable children. The school make sure that it receives all students who are selected to join the school. School costs for various equipment like cleanness tools are not many to give relief to parents to afford, also, students are not returned or penalised for these requirements. Figure 2 shows the statistics of students' enrolment in schools involved in this study.

Source: Field Data
According to the data above, the number of students increases each year. Apart from Fee Free education provision, the government ensure that facilities like classroom and laboratories are also added to ensure all students who have qualified to join secondary obtain that opportunity. One of the headmasters argues; " Some studies have agreed that tuition fees have an impact hinder students from joining their studies example, Deming and Dynarski (2009) found out that; The introduction of tuition fees at a level of roughly $1000 annually had a negative impact on enrolment rates that is both economically and statistically significant. The estimated average treatment effect on the treated indicates that tuition fees reduced enrolment rates amongst high-school graduates in the fee states by 2.7 percentage points. Using the structural model to correct for the spillover to the comparison group suggests that the true effect has reduced enrolment probabilities by approximately 4.7 percentage points.

Shortage of Infrastructures
From the study, respondents mentioned and explained the limited infrastructures as the challenges in the implementation of the FFE in Morogoro municipality. The findings from the questionnaire data show that 100% of Head Teachers and Teachers and 100% of students mentioned the shortage of infrastructure as the challenge in implementing FFE. The increasing number of students enrolled in Secondary Schools causes class overload. The available classrooms, toilets, and desks are not matched with the students who were registered. From the study, the findings revealed that the ratio of desk distribution to students in schools was 1:5, whereby one desk was for five students. The data shows that head teachers and teachers explain that there are shortages of infrastructure in their schools. This data indicates that all teachers who were interviewed agreed with this challenge. Based on the problem of classrooms, the views of respondents can be put in the approximately 80 students to 120 students. Based on the problem of toilets, one teacher mentioned:

The available toilets in school do not satisfy the number of students because the number of toilet holes are not matched the needs of students. The required is one hole of toilets to be used by 20 students for girls and boys 25 students for one hole.
But the situation is one hole for 70 students.
As a result of this problem, there is a decline in quality education, and poor families and vulnerable groups are the main victims who depend on the government's schools. The implementation of the policy was to make sure that all children aged to go to school will be registered, and the main targeted children were those from poor society.
The findings imply that in implementing FFE, head teachers and teachers face a serious shortage of classrooms, offices, houses, desks, chairs, toilets, grounds and electricity. The main root of this situation is possibly the increase in the enrolment of pupils admitted since the announcement of the FFE policy. The enrolment has increased without the increase of other essential infrastructure facilities in the implementation of the FFE policy, which causes poor teaching and learning environments for teachers and students, hence the decline of quality education.
These findings concur with Lyimo et al. (2017) who stated that many secondary schools have insufficient and poor infrastructures and essential facilities such as classrooms, desks, houses, offices, and chairs and the available one is poor. There is no doubt that the enrolment of pupils did not match the number of facilities available in secondary schools.

Shortage of Teachers in Implementing FFE
From the findings of the study, the questionnaire data shows that 97% of head teachers and teachers and 87% of students agree that the number of teachers available in schools was the challenge in implementing FFE whereby the required ratio of the teacher to students is 1:45, but the situation was 1: 80 in one class. This causes a decline in the quality of education provided in schools. Teachers are required to teach and supervise many students in a class and in other activities. The available human resources remain limited compared to the number of students.
The findings indicate that the introduction of the FFE policy caused a severe shortage of teachers because the implementation of the FFE policy generated enrolment of high pupils while teachers remained the same. The number of teachers available did not match the enrolment of pupils in secondary schools in the Morogoro municipality. Therefore, one teacher is required to teach more than 80 students in one class.

As one teacher explained that
This policy made enrolment of students in our schools without considering the age of children that, cause too many children in classrooms with different ages and abilities. This situation is likely to compromise the quality of education because we lose the attention of teaching in such a situation.
In addition to this point, one head of the school mentioned: Shortage of teachers as the challenge in implementing FFE was due to the fact that the number of pupils enrolled is increasing, but the number of teachers remains the same. This challenge obviously causes the decline of good performance of our pupils.
The findings imply that the implementation of the FFE policy led to an increase in the enrolment of pupils, which caused a serious shortage of teachers. The situation hinders the implementation of the policy on the part of teachers harmoniously because they are very imperative personnel to make the FFE policy successful.

Inadequacy of Teaching and Learning Materials in Implementation
The findings from the questionnaire data indicated that 89% of head teachers and teachers and 80% of students mentioned that the implementation of FFE in Morogoro municipality was encountered by the inadequacy of teaching and learning materials. The study considers teaching and learning materials because it is important in measuring the quality of education, whereby the information from this study shows that there was a great shortage of chalk, books for teachers' guides, textbooks, pencil, pens, atlas, and extra books. But because the ratio of books and other resources does not match the number of students hence, which hinders the academic performance of the students in their studies.
One of the teachers said: Shortage of teaching and learning materials is a common problem in most of the government secondary schools, not only in Morogoro municipality but even in other Secondary schools in Tanzania; she further added that there is no ratio between the number of books available to the number of students available.
The allocated fund guided the school teachers to use 30% of such money for buying different learning and Teaching materials. Header teachers do not agree with such a provision, and they suggest the amount allocated be added up to at least 2000/= shillings per student which will enable the schools to increase the ability to buy materials. The findings above concur with the study by Chacha (2013) on the challenges of Secondary education in Tarime, which discovered that the available teaching and learning materials process book for teacher guide is 17.6% and needed books are 82.4%, chalks available is 31% and desks available is 44.4%, the available textbook is 10.7% and no extra books available.

Insufficient and Late Funds Disbursement
The insufficient and late funds disbursement was the implementation challenges mentioned and explained in the study by the respondents. The findings from the questionnaire data show that 70% of head teachers and teachers said that the funds are insufficient and late disbursed in schools. In case of insufficient funds, the respondents were asked to mention the amount which would be sufficient; most of the respondents said that 1500/= Shillings per student would be sufficient, while others said 2000/= shillings per student would be sufficient. Due to the inadequacy of funds, there is the problem of running the school activities like paying for security guards, allowances for the school's committees and expenses which were encored by the parent's contributions.
This was also discovered by HakiElimu (2017) in their report on the impacts of the implementation of the Fee-Free Education Policy on basic education in Tanzania; they revealed that "several activities such as allowances, transport, and lunch expenses in both secondary and secondary schools that were carried out in the past have no funds allocated to them". Also, under the guidelines on the use of funds, there is no provision for giving such allowances to committees and school board members. Hence this causes those members not to attend the meetings.
However, the money distributed does not afford to pay for other teaching and learning materials as it is provided in Circular No.5 of 2015, which is 20% of the capitation grants.
As one of the school heads explained: Insufficient funds allocated by the government to schools make it difficult to achieve and run academic, administrative and maintenance activities at school, whereby the ratio provided appeared to be not equivalent to the number of students at school.
Also, one teacher explains that: The findings imply that, in implementing the FFE policy, teachers face challenges of insufficient and late funds. The government provides little funds compared to the real cost of running the schools. Also, the funds were received at schools late; hence this makes it difficult for the headteacher to plan for the future. This situation causes a decline in quality education. It can be argued that the findings imply that the government rushed to implement the FFE policy without making a clear assessment of how much should be given to each student to allow the implementation of the policy to be smooth.
Charuto and Benjamin (2010) counted that shortage of funds was a major challenge affecting head teachers in implementing of FFE policy which makes it very hard for them to run the school's activities and projects. UNESCO's (2005) report pointed out that the FFE policy grants disbursements were not done on time as most schools received the funds late without any information or reasons.

Community Culture
The result from the study through questionnaire data revealed that 52% of head teachers and teachers and 67% of students agreed culture of the community affects the implementation of the FFE policy in the Morogoro municipality. Respondents had their views that some parents were convincing the students (girls) to make sure that when they entering in the national examination to write the wrong answers to fail the exams so that those girls to be married and other to help their families in domestic activities, segregation of students whereby boys are given priority than girls, boys are assigned any jobs than boys, This culture causes the problem of dropouts because many students will not complete the education cycle. Also, there is the problem of disparities because any girls will not go to school hence increasing the ignorant, and this will be the failure of the policy.
Therefore, to wind up these research objectives, a decline in quality education must be considered by addressing those challenges in secondary schools for the benefit of poor families. An increasing role of enrolment as the result of the implementation of the policy is the main contributor to the rise and increase of the challenges in the provision of education in many Secondary schools. The implementation of the policy must go along with the strategies for the improvements of the working environment of teaching and learning.

Improvement of implementation of FFE policy in Morogoro municipality and Tanzania in General
Based on the responses of 78 respondents when answering the structured and unstructured questions through interviews and questionnaires that were focused on the way forward to improve the policy, they agree with the question that "Do you think the participation of stakeholders in the formulation and implementation of the policy will improve the policy?" While their opinions on the ways to improve the policy, the suggestions ways include: -"Increasing the funds allocated in schools to meet the running costs effectively, the need to ensure improved working conditions in terms of infrastructure example classrooms, toilets, offices and teachers houses". Other proposals include "the need to increase remuneration for teachers, employment of new teachers to cope with the increasing number enrolment in schools and to make sure that the capitation grants reach schools on time".
Regarding the education to the community as a way of improving the policy, one teacher mentioned that: The government should involve all stakeholders from the grassroots to the top level so as to come up with good procedures for improving the implementation of the FFE Policy in the district for future benefits. And also, it should collect information and views from different education professionals and other policymakers for further improvements.
As one of the pupils explained that; My views of the government are that it is required to improve a variety of things for example, to allocate enough funds in schools for improving school infrastructures and education learning materials, addressing the problem of transport for pupils and teachers to enable them to reach school on time.
As one of the school heads mentioned; Government should employ many teachers, Parents should be given more education about free education, the Curriculum design should meet the needs of society, Schools inspection should be done regularly, Infrastructures should be improved, and students should be provided food at school.
Concisely, the results revealed proposals for implementing FFE, those are governments should have a special strategy for the employment of teachers depending on the number of overloaded classes and deploy them in rural areas, there a need to improve fund allocation in schools, improve working conditions by building infrastructure and remuneration for teachers, Ensure teaching and learning materials of all subjects are supplied on time and in all schools, The community should be educated about the implementation of free education especially on the roles of parents and governments as well.

Recommendation of the Study
• For the proper performance of students in schools and the provision of FFE, there is a need for the government to improve the modality amount of funds allocated to run schools.
• For the purpose of increasing community participation and minimising challenges in school-related activities to implementing FFE, there is a need for the community and government to introduce regular programmes to educate parents and students and communicate the concept of FFE.
• In ensuring the commitment of teachers and heads of schools to implement FFE in schools, the working conditions should be improved through remunerating teachers properly, building houses for teachers, ensuring transport for students and teachers, stabling sanitary services, ensuring in-service teachers' training and availing them with teaching resources.
• In eliminating the big teacher-student ratio and shortage of teachers in schools, the government and non-governmental organisations should strive to train new teachers and employ them in schools.
• The quality assurance and monitoring department in the district should be supported to visit schools regularly. Their regular visits are expected to provide support to teachers and schools in terms of technical and professional challenges in teaching and in operating the school.

Recommendation for further studies
Since this study was confined to Morogoro municipality, the results could not be generalised to a large population of Tanzania. There is a need for another study to investigate FFE by involving a large population in Tanzania.