Clusters and factors associated with complementary basic education in Tanzania mainland

Complimentary Basic Education in Tanzania (COBET) is a community-based programme initiated in 1999 to provide formal education system opportunity to over aged children or children above school age. The COBET program was analyzed using secondary data collected from 21 regions from 2008 to 2012. Cluster analysis was applied to classify the 21 regions in terms of enrolments by cohort, dropouts, gender, and regional per capital Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The cluster analysis classified 21 regions into four (4) distinct clusters. The first cluster constituted nine regions; second cluster had four regions; the third had seven regions and fourth cluster had only one region. There are variations between those clusters with cluster four (Dar es Salaam region), with minimum dropout and cluster two (Kilimanjaro, Mbeya, Arusha and Iringa regions) with minimum enrolment among all clusters. The study concluded that the number of enrolment by cohort, dropout, gender, regional per capital GDP, and time in years can be used to classify regions into four distinct clusters.  However, among the factors associated with the number of enrolment and dropout in the COBET centre; time in years, cohort (age) and clusters were statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance. This study recommends that new plans should be initiated based on these classifications in order to make this programme sustainable and set the new tracking system for follow up of COBET students after completing their studies. Key words: Cluster analysis, poisson regression, and complimentary basic education (COBET).