Global Vision, Local Reality: Transforming Pre-Primary Teacher Training in Tanzania

Abstract

Global attention to early childhood education (ECE) has led to an increased focus on ECE teacher training as a critical component of providing young children with access to high-quality ECE programs. In this paper, we ask how Tanzanian stakeholders at different levels of implementation experienced and responded to efforts to build capacity in pre-primary education (PPE) through the introduction of a new PPE diploma program. We examine how national and local stakeholders' responses to the policy were mediated by perceptions of early years teaching, economic realities, and the availability of human and material resources for PPE teacher training. We employ Weaver-Hightower's (2008) ecological approach to policy analysis to make sense of how these environments and structures intersected with the enactment of the PPE diploma program. Drawing on data from the first year of a longitudinal study that employs qualitative methodology to understand the experiences of PPE diploma students, we demonstrate how perceptions about PPE teaching, economic realities and the availability of human and material resources facilitate and constrain program implementation in ways that have implications for its success.