Its profile highlights specific promising policies or those showing positive results that may be relevant to countries like Tanzania. Slovenia is a member of Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has currently 38 members, and its headquarters based in Paris, France.
Although it is a small country in central Europe, Slovenia is one of the high developed economies and a high performing education system in Europe. It became a member of the European Union (EU) on May 1, 2004. It invests more in education and training than the EU average (Education and Training Monitor, 2018). It has an integrated pre-primary education system and pre-primary education for children aged 1 to 6 years, and the enrolment rate of 3 to 4 year-olds is similar to the OECD average.
Studies show that investment in quality pre-primary education is the best way to excel in education and in life (according to Mabagala & Shukia, 2019) because children grow up doing well not only academically, but also in their interaction with their peers, which contributes to character formation and to positive personality.
Other studies show that children who access quality pre-primary education perform brilliantly in their subsequent levels of education more than those who do not. Some countries informed by such studies have started investing adequately in pre-primary education, which provides the foundation for lifelong learning and development (Eurydice Report, 2019).
In Slovenia’s pre-primary education, 97 percent of children enrolled are in public institutions, which is above the OECD average of 61 percent. From the age of 11 months, children are legally entitled to a publicly subsidised place in pre-primary education. After seeing the importance of pre-primary education, some countries in the EU have made it a legal entitlement and a legal obligation so that all children may access it.
At present, Slovenia’s literacy rate is 99.70 percent (according to wisevoter.com) compared to Tanzania’s literacy rate of 76 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) statistics of 2020/21 published in November 2022.
However, wisevoter.com ranks Tanzania’s literacy rate at 80.36 percent in 2023. Tanzania has the potential to do well in many sectors of the economy if it reforms and enforces workable policies that aim at creating decent life for all and this starts with improving its education system starting from pre-primary education.
Top 10 countries (those with the highest literacy rates across the world, according to wisevoter.com) as of 2023 are (with their literacy rates in brackets): Andorra (100 percent), Finland (100 percent), Liechtenstein (100 percent), Luxembourg (100 percent), North Korea (100) percent, Norway (100 percent), Uzbekistan (100 percent), Latvia (99.89 percent), Estonia (99.82 percent) and Lithuania (99.82 percent).
These countries, according to wisevoter.com, have prioritised and invested adequately in education since their education systems address the needs of all citizens, regardless of their socioeconomic background or gender to ensure every person gets an equal opportunity to learn and become literate.
Great emphasis is laid on pre-primary education to ensure their children get the best out of their education journey. Although Slovenia is not among the top 10 countries with the highest literacy rates, it has a high performing education system worth emulating.
On the other hand, 10 countries with the lowest literacy rates, according to wisevoter.com, are Niger (19.1 percent), Guinea (30.47 percent), South Sudan (31.98 percent), Mali (33.07 percent), Central African Republic (36.75 percent), Burkina Faso (37.75 percent), Somalia (37.8 percent), Afghanistan (38.17 percent), Benin (38.45 percent) and Chad (40.02 percent). Almost all of these countries (except one) are in Africa. These are countries which are generally poor and have inadequately invested in education.
Having enlightened (well informed) and responsible citizens, there is the likelihood of success in work and in life. Education contributes greatly to this. So, there are some insights Slovenia may inform Tanzania to improve its education system.
In 2016, education in Slovenia had a share of GDP (5.6 percent) and of total government expenditure (12.4 percent). Early school dropout has been contained and this has helped the country to perform well above the EU average (10.6 percent) and the Europe 2020 target.
Rural areas were reported to be doing well in preventing school dropout more than urban centres and suburbs (2.0 percent vis-â-vis 5.8 percent). Slovenia is one of the EU member countries with the lowest rate of early school dropout (3.9per cent in 2013) and 40.1 percent of the population aged 30-34 years has attained a tertiary qualification. Enrolment in upper secondary education and in vocational education and training (VET) is above average, according to Slovenia’s Education Outlook Profile, 2016.
Participatory governance is part of the public education system. Teachers can nominate and vote for their heads of school, approve the work plan for each school year and plan each year’s curriculum. In the most recent comprehensive curricula reform, teachers were involved in the preparations of and discussions on official curricula.
They are also involved in decision-making on promotions of school employees and on several other school activities. Given the important role of school autonomy in educational quality and outcomes, these organisational factors help explain Slovenia’s strong overall performance.
Students participate in discussions on school regulations and the quality of teaching. Every year they discuss a selected topic in their class and the regional and national school parliament. In upper secondary education, student representatives are on the school board and participate in the decision-making process in cooperation with teacher, parent and state representatives.
These representatives then become members of the parliament of the School Student Organisation of Slovenia (SSOS), which aims at improving students’ contribution to a better school environment and their influence on the curriculum, according to Eurydice, 2017.
Another area which Slovenia invests in is adult learning. In 2017, participation in adult learning was at 12 percent, above the EU average of 10.9 percent. The government provides public funds to create a window of learning opportunities for adults. These are some insights that can inform our own education system.
Telesphor Magobe is a writer based in Dar es Salaam. He can be reached at t22magobe@gmail.com
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