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Abstract

Recent rapid expansion in school enrolment at all levels represents a profound challenge to parents and the government in Tanzania. There has been a very high increase in the number of school-going-age children from year to year due to high fertility. Government resources are thinly spread in very many schools, and there is fear that quality of education may be compromised. The paper presents the argument that there is in evidence a government-will-pay (gwp) attitude in the parents’ values. The parents’ contribution to secure improvement in quality of education is not forthcoming because of this belief, which is traced to the twenty-five years (1967-1992) of socialist ideology. The paper also considers the argument that high fertility contributes to low education quality. Too many children are born when in fact government resources are thinly spread, and the parents remain gripped in the gwp mentality. Rapid population increase further worsens a situation which is already bad. The paper underscores the need for a range of social policy interventions to alleviate the situation.

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