Twaweza pays TZS 456 million in performance bonuses to teachers and schools

They improved basic reading and maths skills of over 79,000 young students across eleven regions

This week head teachers and subject teachers in 265 primary schools in 11 regions of Tanzania received a total of TZS 401 million in their bank accounts as a performance bonus. In addition, in each region one high performing program school received a TZS 5 million infrastructure bonus, for a total of TZS 55 million. The bonus was promised in March 2025 and the bonus size is conditional on the number of students in Standards I-III passing reading and numeracy tests, as measured independently at the end of the 2025 school year. 

The performance bonus is administered through a program called KiuFunza – Kiu ya Kujifunza – a collaboration between the Government of Tanzania and Twaweza East Africa that is supported by the Hempel Foundation of Denmark and the Vodacom Tanzania Foundation. The vision of the program is to get all children in Tanzania to read and calculate by the age of 10. The 265 schools currently in the program were selected from the poorest performing districts in Tanzania, according to Standard Four National Assessment data.

This year, 1038 subject teachers were paid a total of TZS 334.4 million. Subject teachers received an average of TZS 322,000, which is 3.4 percent of the average teacher’s annual salary. The amount received by each teacher is based on the number of students in their class who master basic reading and numeracy skills – including reading stories, addition, and subtraction – as required by the national curriculum. Head teachers in the KiuFunza schools received almost TZS 67 million in total for their supporting role in the performance of the students. 

As a result of the KiuFunza incentives, the pass rates in the 265 schools have already started to improve. In November 2025, students in KiuFunza schools showed large learning improvements across all skills assessed in reading and numeracy, compared to a randomly selected control group of primary schools. KiuFunza students did 21% better in reading and 18% better in maths compared to students in control schools. Since the start of KiuFunza in 2013, the program has improved foundational learning outcomes for over 330,000 young students. Our evidence shows that these students are more likely to stay in school and sit the Primary School Leaving Examination.

KiuFunza helps teachers feel appreciated for their work and they become more focused on student learning. In classroom observations during surprise visits, duty teachers in KiuFunza schools were more likely to be in their classroom and to be actively teaching than those in control schools. Students in KiuFunza schools reported that their teachers’ classroom behavior had improved, making students more motivated and providing additional help (compared control schools). KiuFunza does not provide teacher training, so its impact is driven by teachers being more motivated to focus on their students’ learning. 

KiuFunza is very popular: 95 percent of teachers have a highly favorable view of performance pay based on objective learning measures. Teachers and other stakeholders provided many comments on their experience, including: 

• A teacher in Kigoma: I have really been working hard to get a big bonus, and in working hard I have found myself helping children learn. 
• A teacher in Simiyu: We highly recommend continuing this program because we have seen positive results for our children.
• A parent in Mtwara: My child is now able to count from 1 to 100. If you give him a Tsh 5,000 note to buy sugar and soap at a shop he will come with the exact change. This was impossible to him last year.
• A Ward Education Officer in Kigoma: Thanks very much to Twaweza for KiuFunza because my ward has benefited from KiuFunza and has got more improvement in learning. Now our teachers are to surprise all schools in the ward or council in performance.
• A Ward Education Officer in Tanga: I would like all schools in my ward to be enrolled as KiuFunza treatment schools in order to improve pupils’ performance. I have observed a clear example of improved national examination results at one school in my ward, which is currently participating in the KiuFunza project.

Anna Bwana, Executive Director of Twaweza, said “Learning is at the core of our long term national development. At the most basic level, all our children should be able to read, count and calculate by the time they are 10 years old. Of course, we need good classrooms and enough desks and books, but we must remember that we also need motivated teachers. KiuFunza proves that a simple teacher incentive system can grow from 100 schools to almost 300 across Tanzania and continue to produce very strong learning effects.  KiuFunza is much cheaper than many other education interventions, making it one of the world’s most cost-effective programs to promote basic skills”. 

Read the full press release here.