Competence-based curriculum(CBC) reforms have become a policy response to demands for competencies(21St Century, inclusion, digitalisation and sustainability-oriented learning). While international evidence specifies professional development criteria, system-level evaluations struggle to show how intentions are converted into classroom-enacted learning outcomes in contexts, where learning opportunities, assessment approaches and implementation conditions vary (OECD, 2024; Mitchell et al.,2024). A blind spot is the “intended-achieved” problem: learning outcomes may be specified in policy and curriculum, but the mechanisms that connect those intentions to teachers’ professional learning and competence-oriented pedagogy and assessment are rarely traced across governance layers and routines(Cedefop, 2024, 2025).

This contribution presents the research architecture and early results of STEP-STUDY Tanzania mixed-method multi-component project that examines how teacher professionalism and teacher professional development mediate the pathway from intended outcomes to classroom enactment and assessment in Tanzanian primary education. Tanzania provides a strategically informative case: CBC was introduced in general education(2005) and in teacher education(2009), creating a long enough time window for institutionalisation, drift and contested enactment, yet evidence on primary teacher professional learning and assessment practices remains limited in scale and geographic coverage (Komba & Shukia, 2023). Existing Tanzanian studies consistently point to implementation constraints (resources, time, teacher preparation) and assessment tensions, but they are typically small-scale and concentrated in secondary schooling, leaving primary education under-evidenced and system-level misalignments largely inferred rather than demonstrated (Nyoni, 2023; Mwakyobwe & Shawa, 2023; Ndimbo, 2024).

We conceptualise CBC implementation as a system-coherence problem: misalignments between intended outcomes, the teacher education/TPD infrastructure that should enable them, and the instructional and assessment routines through which outcomes become visible as learning evidence. STEP–STUDY addresses this by mapping the “intended-delivered-assessed/achieved” chain across macro/meso/micro levels and synthesising evidence through a heatmap that makes alignment and rupture points visible across strands.

Intended learning outcomes are encoded in curriculum and standards. Meso-level institutions (teacher education institutions, districts, schools) translate these intentions into programmes, materials, and CPD routines. Micro-level enactment depends on teachers’ professional repertoire and assessment literacy as a mediating competence enabling teachers to design tasks, interpret evidence, and align assessment with competence-oriented teaching (Girgla et al., 2021; Pastore, 2023; Xu & Brown, 2016).

This study aims to provide robust, evidence-based insights into the professional development of primary school teachers in Tanzania, focusing on addressing systemic gaps and improving implementation of the Competence-Based Curriculum (CBC).

Research question: How are Tanzania’s CBC learning outcomes translated from intended policy intentions into achieved classroom practices through teacher education and TPD across macro, meso and micro levels?
Sub-RQ1: Where do we observe alignment or mismatch between national intentions (policy/curriculum) and meso-level translation (teacher education curricula, CPD offers, learning materials)?
Sub-RQ2: What is the distribution of teachers’ and teacher educators’ assessment literacy and competence-oriented pedagogical practices and how does it vary by context (rural/urban, career stage)?
Sub-RQ3: Which TPD opportunities and institutional conditions are associated with higher self-reported competence-oriented practice and assessment literacy, net of teacher and school characteristics?

The study reframes CBC implementation as a system-coherence problem: misalignments between intentions, teacher education/TPD infrastructures, classroom enactment, and assessment, rather than an individualised “teacher deficit” narrative. Methodologically, it demonstrates how a macro/meso/micro heatmap can integrate heterogeneous evidence streams in a modular research programme and keep assessment literacy central to explaining achieved learning outcomes.

Study offers (1) a transferable, multi-level LOA evaluation design that moves beyond “implementation challenges” narratives by mapping specific alignment mechanisms and points of breakdown; (2) an assessment-literacy pathway specifying why competence-based reforms often remain rhetorically strong but instructionally thin; and (3) internationally comparable indicators through linkage to established survey constructs, enabling ECER audiences to use Tanzania as a theoretically informative case rather than an exceptional one.

STEP–STUDY Tanzania uses a convergent mixed-methods design in which documentary analysis, surveys, and qualitative fieldwork are carried out in the same phase and then interpreted together to follow how competence-based curriculum (CBC) intentions become classroom practice, assessment, and (visible) learning evidence across macro, meso, and micro levels (Cedefop, 2024, 2025; Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018). The study works along an “intended-delivered-assessed/achieved” logic: it asks what the curriculum specifies, what institutions and programmes actually offer to teachers, and what teachers report doing and assessing in daily instruction. The desk-review and documentary strand synthesises policy documents and prior research to clarify intended learning outcomes and the translation routes through which they are meant to travel: teacher education curricula, continuing professional development (CPD/TPD) guidance, assessment regulations, and learning materials. In parallel, the empirical strand generates nationally informative indicators of teacher professionalism, classroom practice, and assessment literacy. Qualitative inquiry then helps explain the survey patterns by tracing how actors understand requirements, how accountability works in practice, and where routines support or obstruct competence-oriented teaching and assessment. Sampling and participants. The survey programme covers pre-service teachers (n≈2,500) and in-service primary teachers (n≈4,000), with oversampling of novice and upgrading in-service teachers. A school-context module targets head teachers (n≈400). Additional survey modules include teacher educators (n≈400), teacher education institution (TEI) heads (n≈80), and further pre-service cohorts within TEIs (n≈1,600), following project documentation. Qualitative data include interviews/focus groups with policy makers, quality assurance officers, and stakeholders (typically ~20 per group), plus a small “best-practice” classroom observation component in model schools (n≈20) to support interpretation of reported practices. Measures and analysis. Instruments align key constructs with established international survey families (including TALIS-relevant domains) while adding context-sensitive measures needed for CBC enactment and competence-oriented assessment (OECD, 2024). “Intended” outcomes are coded from policy/curriculum and teacher education documents; “achieved” outcomes are approximated via self-reported instructional/assessment practices, professional learning participation, professionalism indicators, and assessment-literacy dimensions (Xu & Brown, 2016; Pastore, 2023). Documents and transcripts are analysed using structured qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2014). Survey analyses move from descriptive profiles to subgroup comparisons and association models (no causal claims). Integration uses joint displays and a multi-level heatmap to show alignment and rupture points across strands. Participation is voluntary, with informed consent, anonymisation, and secure data handling.

Early evidence from the desk review and the Tanzanian literature suggests a stable pattern: competency-based curriculum (CBC) intentions are widely articulated in policy discourse, yet translation into routine classroom practice is constrained by (i) uneven opportunities for practice-based teacher learning, (ii) material and time constraints, and (iii) assessment arrangements that incentivise coverage and recall rather than competence demonstration (Nyoni, 2023; Mwakyobwe & Shawa, 2023; Ndimbo, 2024). Studies of teacher education indicate that tutors may recognise intended competencies while rarely enacting competence-oriented pedagogy and assessment approaches, producing an “awareness–enactment gap” that shapes what new teachers can realistically learn to do (Mwakyobwe & Shawa, 2023). This pattern is consistent with evidence that TPD at scale can drift toward compliance-oriented delivery and weak differentiation (Mitchell et al., 2024). STEP–STUDY Tanzania moves the debate from constraint listing to mechanism diagnosis. By tracing intended learning outcomes through meso-level institutional translation into micro-level professional routines, and by making assessment literacy an explicit mediator, the project identifies where the “intended–achieved” chain breaks and which repair strategies are plausible (Xu & Brown, 2016; Pastore, 2023; Cedefop, 2024, 2025). The logic model links policy intent to practice via opportunities to rehearse, material supports that make competence-oriented teaching feasible, and assessment signals that make competence demonstration worthwhile. The study also considers equity by systematically describing variation by school location, teacher career stage, and gender, where data allow. Expected outputs are: (1) a multi-level alignment map locating rupture points between intended outcomes, meso-level translation (TEI/CPD/materials), and classroom practice; (2) descriptive evidence on TPD opportunities, assessment literacy, and competence-oriented practice in primary education under real-world constraints; and (3) design implications for CPD and teacher education reforms that strengthen achieved learning outcomes rather than only revising intended ones. Claims remain proportional to the design: we document patterns and examine associations, not causal effects.

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