Date of Award
5-2026
Culminating Project Type
Dissertation
Styleguide
apa
Degree Name
Higher Education Administration: Ed.D.
Department
Educational Administration and Higher Education
College
School of Education
First Advisor
Michael Mills
Second Advisor
Steven McCullar
Third Advisor
Mumbi Mwangi
Fourth Advisor
Erin L. Heath
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
Policy, Policy Making, Higher Education, Structure Adjustment Policy, Advocate Coalition Framework
Abstract
Higher education policy plays a significant role in national development. However, the process of making higher education policy in Tanzania has not only become an extremely political process which involves a complex set of internal and external forces, but also an equivocal process. The Tanzanian higher education policy making style has increasingly criticized for being predicated on highly top-down process and external influences. These critics elicited this research to investigate on how Tanzania makes higher education policies. The central purpose was posed to three research questions namely how Tanzania makes higher education policy, what are the mutual relationship between Tanzanian higher education and IFAIs, and how higher education policy reflects challenges facing higher education institutions in Tanzania. I used qualitative research method approach to collect, analyze, and understand the whole process of higher education policy making. I used case study methodology to generate an in-depth understanding of higher education policy making whereby interview method and snowball sampling was used. The result of this study shows that Tanzanian government through the designated Ministry of Education (MOE) has the sole responsibility to initiate the processes of making and changing education policy. However, this research revealed further the final decision on policy agenda is determined by government through the cabinet and influential input of IFAIs. The local stakeholder has little to say on final decision of policy making compared to IFAIs and government. Additionally finding from this study shows that the IFAIs’ relations with the Tanzanian government were not only centered on the solely factor of poverty eradication but also the relationship extended to the spread of a neoliberal policy agenda in Tanzania. I concluded by viewing that the growing intervention on higher education policy making in Tanzania with external stakeholders should be limited to unconditional views only on improving policy. Tanzania government must incorporate other ways of funding education than depending on IFAIs. Also, the government must improve the decision-making process that vest power to the local stakeholder.
Recommended Citation
Mganya, Godfrey, "A Study of Tanzanian Higher Education Policy-Making: The Case of Education Policies Made after 1990s." (2026). Culminating Projects in Higher Education Administration. 106.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/hied_etds/106
Comments/Acknowledgements
A work of this nature would not have come to accomplishment without the full support I received from both institutions and individuals. To mention all of individuals and institution here will make this document as bigger as my research itself. To all these individuals and institutions, I am deeply saying thank you. Nevertheless, I am indebted to the Center for Doctoral Studies for giving me the opportunity to pursue my doctorate degree. I am particularly grateful to the Tanzania Ministry of Education, the World Bank, and other IFAIs institution officials who took their valuable time to do interview with me. Promises of confidentiality bar my desire to mention individual names. Nonetheless, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the following persons who have showed continuous support toward my endeavor for this work.
First, I want to thank my supervisor Dr. Michael Mills for his constructive criticisms and insightful comments that were valuable in shaping and moving this project to it fruitiness. Also, I extend my gratitude to my dissertation committee, Dr. Steven McCuller, Professor Mumbi Mwangi, and Dr. Erin Heath Lever. Their inclination to support my dissertation whenever I seek their help was very inspiring for completion of this work. I could not ask more than to work with such a team of intellectuals who have unconditionally supported me throughout this work. I am also obliged to doctoral program facilitator, Michele Braun and School of education student service director Katie Kustritz, for their unquestionable support and friendly environment for the time I have worked with them.
In a very special way, I am incredibly indebted to my wife Antonia Donald Mkunya. I would have never made through without her support, courage, prayers and understanding. She has been an outstanding wife and mother to our children for all the time I have been away, working on this dissertation. Thanks also extend to my mother Monica John Rwabukoba, Lucy Martin Mkunya and my sister Letitia Cyprian. Their prayers, courage, and support kept me firm to finish this work.