In recent years, monitoring of elections witnessed citizen participation in observing and reporting incidences through ubiquitous communication technologies to improve election integrity. Digitally enabled citizen observers complement long tradition of established observers to assess the quality of electoral contests. Using participatory rhombus conceptual model and its concept of invented and invited spaces [1], the paper examines the ability of the crowdmonitors to observe, generate and communicate voter education and mobilization activities via Magpi software application in the 2015 Tanzanian general elections. Generated big election data from citizens' observers were digitally mapped in the Uchaguzi Wetu 2015 crowdsourcing platform. However, international election observer reported that voter education activities were, not visible at all. In contrast, our analysis found voter education and mobilization of women, youth and people with disabilities to participate in the electoral process, conducted by electoral commission, civil society organizations and political parties were visible in rural, urban and metropolitan constituencies. Here it is argued that technology usage and invented space enhances crowdmonitoring or blended approach of online and offline instruments produce better observation results. This includes recognition of nonpartisan monitoring of electoral processes through digital participatory methods.

Although numerous studies concerning local democracy have been carried out in Tanzania, most of them have fallen short of analysing crowdsourcing citizen participation in local democracy online. Local democracy aims essentially to promote fundamental rights of the citizen to participate in policy and decision-making processes. On the other hand, crowdsourcing in the modern digital age - is increasingly expected not only to transform relationships between local politicians and voters in democratic processes, but also to engage and empower ordinary citizens to have a voice in monitoring electoral procedures by new electronic means from below. Promotion of citizen participation with better platforms for monitoring local elections and information sharing in near real-time is a vital element for healthy local democracy. This is why in recent times; we have witnessed emerging of digitally empowered citizen voice platforms such as Uchaguzi open source and social media pages like Facebook for citizens' crowdsourcing systems. In that regard this paper attempts to map citizen crowdsourcing methods, trends and challenges of online participation in monitoring local elections in Tanzania. Crowdsourcing methods through information and communication technologies create an agenda for collective citizen participation, collaborative production and sharing of local information.

The rise of social media networks (SNS) should be celebrated as signalling era of online campaign after decades of old-style traditional campaign. The first wide use of SNS for mobilising voters was by President Obama during the 2008 United States Presidential election. This paper examined a correlation between Facebook campaign engagements of presidential candidates in the 2015 Tanzania election and the number of votes they garnered. We examined Facebook pages over a period of two months. Our empirical findings show that some presidential candidates participate significantly in Facebook campaigning, however, they differ in number of followers, posts, likes, shares, comments and votes. Some candidates were rarely exposed to Facebook. Some were active. Yet there was little evidence, Facebook activities were a game changer to the shares of votes. Nonetheless, we found out that candidates who had Facebook pages trounced those without Facebook pages in the shares of votes.

Inclusive education (IE) for learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has become a major policy priority. However, its meaning in everyday school and community contexts remains unevenly understood among different stakeholders. This participatory qualitative study examined how teachers, parents/caregivers, and neighbors conceptualized IE for learners with ASD in three urban public primary schools in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Data were collected from 30 participants using participant-generated photographs, photo-elicitation discussions, and follow-up unstructured interviews. Photographs and participants’ narratives were analyzed together as a single photovoice dataset using reflexive thematic analysis. Findings indicated that participants generally supported IE in principle but negotiated its implementation through conditions related to learner ability, school capacity, safety, educational expectations, and responsibility for support. Participants prioritized practical outcomes over academic success; they valued togetherness, physical presence, and teacher-led responsibility while giving comparatively less attention to broader rights-based dimensions of IE. Parents and neighbors emphasized belonging and acceptance, whereas teachers emphasized feasibility, specialist support, and practical implementation constraints. The study introduces the concept of conditional inclusion to describe a form of support that extends beyond placement decisions by showing how inclusion is negotiated through local assumptions about learner ability, school capacity, safety, educational expectations, and responsibility for support. These findings suggest that locally grounded community engagement is essential for adapting IE policies and practices for learners with ASD in comparable low-resource urban contexts.

The government of Tanzania, in ensuring every child attains primary education, introduced free primary education programs. But truancy has been a challenge in some communities. Engaging the communities in monitoring education service delivery improves understanding of the local people about the problem, and creates more viable solutions, fosters a sense of ownership, and maximizes learning opportunities for all children. This article explores mechanisms to create awareness of community-based monitoring of truancy, ways of engaging community members in monitoring truancy and examines the challenges of community-based monitoring of truancy in public primary schools. The study adopted a qualitative case study design guided by social accountability theory and participatory governance theory. The target population comprised education stakeholders and community leaders involved in primary education, attendance monitoring and responses to truancy in Enduleni Ward, Ngorongoro District, Arusha, Tanzania. Fifteen key informants were conducted include: three heads of schools, ten teachers, one village chairperson and one community development officer, were selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected through key informant interviews and analysed using qualitative content analysis, with codes grouped into categories and themes aligned with the study objectives. The findings show that village and school meetings, informal discussions and customary meetings are the mechanisms used to create awareness of community-based monitoring of truancy. The ways of engaging community members in monitoring truancy include: parent-teacher consultations, parent meetings, personal visit by parents and students’ academic reports. Challenges such as poverty, child labour, the existence wild animals, negative attitude towards education, teenage pregnancies, child marriage and a strong patriarchal system were reported. Therefore, information should be provided on community-based monitoring methods through trainings and seminars from different educational stakeholders including teachers, non-governmental organisations, faith-based organisations and local government authorities.