THE INTERPRETATION AND USE OF BIG RESULTS NOW (BRN) AND     COMPETENCE BASED APPROACH (CBA) IN PROMOTING AND

SUSTAINING BOTH ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS AND

LIFE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FOR SELF

EMPLOYMENT IN

SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

1.0 INTRODUCTION

AMS EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS CONSULTANCY (AMS-ESPC) is an independent organization deals with providing consultations in education industry in running a school smoothly. It also gives social guidance and counseling to people. AMS-ESPC is registered by the government with a registration No: 244344 and having certified by No. 01611719 as well as The Taxpayer Identification Number is 105-596-375.

Basing on the changes occurring in education sector such as curriculum change from content based to competence based approach and the concept of Big Results Now resulted to the contradictions among educational stakeholders mainly the curriculum implementers (Teachers) as they are not well informed.

Hence, AMS-ESPC has developed and is running the so called RESULTS BASED PROGRAMS (RBPs) which facilitate effective Teaching and Learning Processes to both teachers and students in order to raise the academic performance and provision of life skills towards self employment.

The program has been highly conducted in Dar es Salaam region due to support from different educational stakeholders while in rural areas the program me is conducted in very few areas because of lack of enough fund to facilitate the program me.

2.0 STATEMENT PROBLEM

Research conducted by the government in 2013 following massive failure of students in Form Four National examination and sources of information from National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA) shown that there is an increase of enrolment of students for both primary and Secondary schools. However, the academic performance is decreasing drastically. This situation has been revealed from the National examination results. For instance, in the year 2006 the performance was 89%, 90% in 2007, 84% in 2008, 73% in 2009, 50% in 2010, 54 % in 2011, 43% in 2012 and 58% in 2013. Please note that this performance ranges from division I-IV and the majority falls in division IV.

Moreover, the current situation indicates that the rate of unemployment is also increasing due to lack of mind set of the society and learners on self employment.

As consequences, most of students and the community do focus on being employed in different sectors; either on governmental or nongovernmental organizations rather than self employment. These situations lead to high number of people who are jobless leading practicing dishonest behaviours.

However, there are no or little efforts have been done by Educational stake holders to rectify these challenges focusing to teachers, learners, school administration and the parents/community.