I cannot believe I've been volunteering at the nursery school for nearly two weeks now. This is probably because it's been a complete and utter whirlwind of change, in every sense of the word. Each day I am there, the schedule changes, my "responsibilities" change, and the number, abilities, moods, and 'tudes of my children change.
Thus, every morning I arrive at Step Up Nursery School, Amka Extension, with varying amounts of confidence, energy, and knowledge/expertise. This is confusing... and a little bit frustrating... but mostly just exhausting. Let me attempt to explain by backing up a few steps and summarizing what I've come to gather and understand about education in Tanzania.
Historically, the "education system" in TZ began like many other places -- informally, wherein each person learned the history, ways, and rules from the other people in his/her immediate community/tribe, with absolutely no influence or information from the outside world. Eventually, of course, as we all know, the world came boldly marching into Africa (namely the Germans and Brits, in Tanzania), demanding and enforcing change. Education evolved from informal learning to special skills training, with children inheriting the specific trades of their parents/families. While the colonizing Europeans began to draw much wealth from the region, little investment was made in the quality of life of the local Africans. Enter my friends Protest and Liberation.
Tanzania, then called Tanganyika, gained independence from British rule on December 9th, 1961, under the leadership of a guy named Julius Nyere, who was -- what else?! -- a charismatic and optimistic young school teacher. From that moment on, Nyere -- revered and respected around the world for putting the welfare of his people above all else -- committed his government to investing in education. In particular, they strived to provide free universal primary education for every child in Tanzania. A noble and worthy goal, no? Unfortunately, this dream still hasn't yet been realized.
Children here have, however -- no matter which of the over 200 ethnic groups they may be members of -- been taught to identify themselves as proud Tanzanians with a shared language: Swahili. Furthermore, by the late 1980s, the country's literacy rate was one of the highest in Africa, all thanks to Mwalimu (as Nyere is still known), which means "teacher" in Swahili.
Since then, however, much of the momentum has been lost, as about only 20% of the 85% of the child population enrolled in primary school actually end up finishing it, and barely 5% complete secondary school.
There are, of course, many reasons for this downward trend, and I bet you could guess some of them (sincerely, you're pretty intelligent) -- insufficient government funding, trained teachers, schools and general resources, being some of them. Corruption, expensive school fees, and language barriers being others.
The original Step Up Nursery School (founded by Mama Naseem in 1995), operates under the belief that children should be in school as early as possible, as education paves the way for equality, stability, and perhaps even prosperity for the individual as well as the community. The Nursery School aims to prepare kiddos for primary school, so everything from the ABCs to the 1-2-3s is covered.
In particular, Step Up also strives to include as much English instruction into the school day as possible. This is different and important, some argue, because while all Tanzanian primary schools are taught in Swahili, ALL secondary schools are taught in English. Imagine starting high school in the States and finding out you'd have to take every class completely in Swahili -- AWESOME, right? No problem. A+. Therefore, as you may have guessed, many if not most students enter secondary school without a sufficient understanding of the new language, thus catalyzing, in part, the humongous drop-out rate here in TZ. With an early introduction of English, Step Up hopes to prepare its students for learning in both languages -- national and international. Cool, right? Poa.
Even with this potential leg up, Step Up still operates like many other schools here -- with limited supplies, limited space, and limited teacher man-power. Enter Me.
To be continued in the NEXT POST. Hooray! Do you feel saturated with information? I'm sorry. Pole sana.
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