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Working as a volunteer for READ International gave me the chance to experience first hand, how the education system in Tanzania works and schools were chosen to receive a donation according to the scarcity of their resources. At each school we visited with a donation the boxes of books which were unpacked and stamped by the children and volunteers, and teachers were shown how to use the books in conjunction with the very similar Tanzanian syllabus.
Many of the schools we visited lacked basic facilities such as libraries or places to store their books, although they claimed to be building libraries in the future. However, one of the schools we donated to did have a reasonable library to which students had access to, and once it was filled with new and up to date textbooks I felt we had really made a difference.
As I spoke to the teachers at the schools about how they could use the books in their lessons, I found it was easier to communicate with some more than others. Some teachers were really enthusiastic about using the books and understood how they could map their syllabus onto English textbooks, and even offered to explain this process to their colleagues. On the other hand, some found the concept difficult to grasp and were distracted by how young our volunteers were and kept asking if we had come to teach, or would be willing to teach at their school.
One thing that struck me was the enthusiasm the children had for learning, and the excitement they showed at the arrival of new textbooks. Many schools in Tanzania have hardly any resources. In addition to this pupils are required to adjust abruptly to being taught in English, rather than Swahili when they enter secondary school. Often students have to travel substantial distances to reach their nearest school - some travelling between 2 and 2.5 km everyday.
Despite these obvious obstacles the students are eager to learn; at one point I was presented with a leaf and was asked how the phloem worked as he had seen it in one of the textbooks we had brought.
Their passion for education was certainly motivating but it was disheartening to see that at some levels the old-fashioned, stereotypical gender views were still upheld. For example, if a girl falls pregnant she is automatically removed from school and often this halts her education completely. In other more common circumstances, girls are expected to take on extensive household chores as well as finding time for homework and so their studies are easily neglected.
These views are held by much of society but it’s particularly disturbing when it is shared by the headmaster of a mixed school. Speaking to a group of girls at one school, we were explaining how well girls in the UK do in their studies and often succeed their male counterparts. Immediately, this comment was met with indignation and denial from the headmaster who overheard and refused to accept that girls are capable of the same level of academic achievement as boys.
The division between girls and boys was seen in how few girls attended secondary school – at Goweko school there were only 50 girls compared to 200 boys. As an all girl group of volunteers at university we hoped to inspire girls to persevere with their studies.
A question we were often asked in Tanzanian schools was “How does our school differ from the schools in the UK?”. We didn’t quite know where to start answering that; to people who had never seen the UK, our explanation would have been describing a completely different world.
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