Significance of Trends on Enrolment, Budget and Actual Expenditure in the Examination of Higher Education Financing in Tanzania

Abstract

Financing of higher education in Tanzania is considered a crucial factor in realizing the country’s development vision. It is for these reasons that Tanzania has been financing its higher education since its inception.  Diminishing resource capacity and competing interests for government finance plunged the higher education into financial doldrums.  As a result, the higher education sector was compelled to manouvre through various sources of financing in order to remain relevant to its role in economic development.  The efforts to remain relevant are depicted as the significance of the trends of financing higher education. This study attempted to examine the significance of the trends of enrollment, budget and actual expenditure in Higher Education in Tanzania to sustainable human capital investment from 2005 to 2015. Secondary data were collected from the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) budgets from 2005 to 2015 from which trends of enrollment, budgeting and actual expenditure were analyzed. The findings indicated an upward trend on both enrolment and financing of the education sector from 2005 to 2015.  The trends were still very low when compared with neighbouring countries.  A huge funding chasm still exists in the budgets of the education Sector.  The challenge lies on how to bridge the gap.  The study suggested that the government diversified sources of financing the higher education, away from the traditional thinking.

Keywords: Higher Education, Trends, Cost-Sharing, Budget, Tanzania