2.1.1 The first five year development plan (1964 - 69)

Raising literacy levels especially among the adult population was considered to be essential in the drive to achieve Tanzaniasation and was one of the principal objectives of the first Five-Year-Development Plan (FYDP), The most important aspect of Tanzaniasation was to raise the literacy levels of the rural peasant in an effort to improve agricultural production. In addition the quality of secondary, further and higher education was to be enhanced to speedup the process of replacing expatriate workers with Tanzanians, for prior to independence large companies and the public sector had favoured employing expatriates as managers, technicians and administrators, while Tanzanians performed the more menial tasks. To accomplish this, a cadre of educated Tanzanians was required in the immediate future, but the mass education of young people was considered to be a long term investment, 'first we must educate adults. Our children will not have an impact on our economic development for five, ten or even twenty years' (Nyerere 1965).

During this early period the debate about the future structure of education began. The initial idea was to combine the existing primary and middle school years to create an eight-year primary programme. However, in 1964 this was superseded by the current 7-4-2-3 system currently used.