Tanzanian pre-primary teachers’ commitment to teaching in the context of unemployment

Globally, efforts to increase access to pre-primary education have led to a surge in enrolment. To address a pre-primary teacher shortage that resulted from a dramatic increase in pre-primary enrolment rates, Tanzania developed a new pre-primary diploma programme with the goal of attracting more teachers and improving instructional quality. In this article, I investigate the commitment trajectories of 20 pre-primary teachers who were part of the first cohort to graduate with a pre-primary diploma but had not yet received a government teaching post. Analysis of in-depth interviews reveals both stability and change in teachers’ pre- and post-graduation levels of commitment. I contend that making sense of stability and change in the context of unemployment requires an understanding of the employment landscape in Tanzania, the constraints on students’ ability to influence their educational and career trajectories, and the government’s efforts to professionalise ECE teaching.