Promoting Functional Scientific Literacy in Tanzania: A Critique of Current Basic Education Policy

Abstract Functional Scientific Literacy ( FSL ) is widely acknowledged for its contribution to benefiting a society by ensuring every citizen understands something about science. But there is a debate throughout Tanzania and beyond which concerns curriculum policy, in the interest of affording citizens freedom of choice; e.g. in Tanzania students who do not choose a science stream are permitted to excise themselves from science education entirely by dropping Physics and Chemistry two years before completing their basic education. I argue that such a curriculum policy carries tremendous implications for the country, undermining the declared national ideal of promoting social and technological development for all. Further, the policy is not coherent: why should Physics and Chemistry be dropped while Biology and Mathematics are retained? How might FSL learning experiences be reorganised to recoup the potential value that are lost as a result of dropping some of these subjects?