DAR ES SALAAM, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Tanzania's leading education non-governmental organization (NGO) HakiElimu on Tuesday raised concerns over falling education standards in the east African nation and called for more funding for the sector.

In the past few years, the organization said, literacy and numeracy skills have been falling among primary school children to levels below expectations across all grades.

In a statement on the education sector's budget plan for 2018/2019 financial year, HakiElimu urged the government to pay attention to the falling allocation trend of the education sector's budget.

"We recommend the government to allocate 20 percent of its 2018/2019 national budget to the education sector," the statement said.

The statement also called on the government to address inadequacy of infrastructure in schools.

"Currently in primary schools, shortage of libraries increased from 88 percent in 2016 to 91.1 percent in 2017," said the statement.

Secondary schools face shortage of laboratories at 51.5 percent for biology, 54.3 for physics and 43.3 for chemistry.

"Shortage of toilet facilities for girls stands at 62 percent while boys face 56 percent shortage," said the statement.

Last month, former president Benjamin Mkapa said the country's education was in crisis and called for a national dialogue to save students in public schools.