Education Sector National Budget

For fiscal year 2011/2012, which began 1 July 2011, the education sector national budget is 2,283 billion Tanzanian shillings, which equates to US$1.45 billion (at an exchange rate of 1,591 shillings per dollar). This is an 11.6% increase over the amount budgeted for fiscal year 2010/2011. After accounting for inflation, however, the increase is approximately 1%.

Based on actual performance in recent fiscal years, the amount budgeted for the Tanzanian Ministry of Education and Vocational Training is typically much more than the amount spent. In fiscal year 2008/2009, the ministry spent 85.1 billion shillings out of the 128.5 billion budgeted. The gap between budgeted and spent has increased since then. In fiscal year 2010/2011, the ministry spent only 76.8 billion out of the 139.7 billion budgeted.

A total of Shs. 155.1 billion was unspent in the last three years. This amount could be sufficient to build 3,875 houses for teachers according to the estimated costs of building one house at Shs. 40 million as outlined by ... phase 2 of the Secondary Education Development Program. By building these houses we could have reduced the problem of teachers lacking accommodation, especially for schools situated in remote rural villages.

The education sector was budgeted to consume 20% of the national budget in fiscal year 2008/2009. That share decreased to 17% in fiscal year 2011/2012.

Funds budgeted in fiscal year 2011/2012 for development, such as constructing buildings and teachers' houses, consume only 10.2% of the total amount budgeted for the education sector. This compares to 20-24% in Uganda and 14-15% in Kenya.