Education in Tanzania

Today was the first day of school after a break of just over a month, and most of the children arrived for class in their green uniforms. It was nice to see the school back in full swing after having only about a quarter of the usual students there for so long. All the teachers and other volunteers were back, as was the 10:00 tea time. I spent the day teaching the standard 2 students, we had English in the morning where we reviewed plural and singular from of words, and after tea break we reviewed science an spelling. I was working with Claire, a volunteer from another organization, and class went relatively smoothly. I was happily surprised to find that I remembered many of the names of the children whom I have not seen in over a month.

The students at TCC are very advanced in terms of the curriculum when compared with students at other schools in the area. The education system here is not quite up to the task of educating all the children in the country. It is not uncommon for one class to be over 80 students, and I have heard that in some of the more remote villages an entire school of 100 or 200 students may have only one teacher. Partly this is because compulsory education in Tanzania is a newer concept, and the system has not yet been able to expand to the new demand. Another problem is money, or the lack there of. Even public schools require a small fee for the students to attend, and some family's are simply not able to pay.

But despite the problems and short comings there is hope as well. Teacher colleges have sprung up all across the country to help meet the demand, and new schools are built as often as possible. Every morning we see hundreds of young and old kids walking to school in various uniforms, some green, some red and white, many blue, and a few in green, yellow, black, and blue, the colors of the Tanzanian flag.

(the computer is giving me trouble, and may not save this post if I stay on much longer. I'll finish it at a later time if possible.)