Education for Persons with Disabilities in Tanzania

Persons with disabilities (PWDs) have been facing numerous challenges in attaining their education. Tanzania has made various efforts to ensure equal education for all. Among the efforts include joining hands with international communities by ratifying numerous international instruments, such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The country developed the 2004 National Policy on Disability and enacted the 2010 Persons with Disabilities Act, among other statutes, to protect the rights of PWDs, including the right to education. However, despite all these efforts, PWDs are not efficiently able to access and attain equal education. The authors intend to assess the efficiency of the laws and policies governing the protection of the right to education for PWDs on the assumption that they are inefficient. For instance, generally, the right to education under the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania is not justiciable. This has essential implications for the protection of this right, even for PWDs. Hence, this work will employ both primary and secondary sources of data to assess the policy and legal frameworks governing PWDs and evaluate their efficiencies in ensuring equal access to education for everyone, including PWDs. Finally, this work will give recommendations to reform the policy and legal frameworks in the country.