Girls’ Right to Education in Tanzania: Incongruities between Legislation and Practice

Tanzania is one of the Sub-Saharan African countries with low girls’ attendance rates, high drop-out rates and poor performance in schools. This is despite global, regional and country measures and interventions to promote girls’ right to education. This paper seeks to examine the major international and regional legal provisions for girls’ education and assess whether Tanzanian policies, laws and practices promote girls’ right to education in the country, using a women’s empowerment framework. It asserts that, while some policies and laws in Tanzania promote girls’ right to education, albeit with some shortfalls in relation to gender equality and girls’ empowerment, it is unfortunate that other policies, laws and practices undermine such a right. What we find, instead, is increased contradictions and confusions between specific legislation promoting a girls’ right to education, and broader policy and legal frameworks and practices. These contradictions and confusions contribute significantly to the continued disempowering of girls. Thus, there is a need for the amendment of some policies and laws to harmonise and make them effective and efficient in protecting the rights of girls.