State v Private

Thinking about which experience to tell you all about this time has been difficult. There were so many days, so many single events that stood out, throughout the three months I was away. But eventually I settled on a topic, one that related particularly to my reason for being in Tanzania.

I went to Tanzania to teach English, to work along side native teachers to help their education, to give them a first hand experience to a native speaker of the language. The school I was 'stationed' in, if you will, was in a small village called Amani. It was a dark, poorly built, and not equipped well enough to cope with the number of students that attend. Students share textbooks between three, and three seat desks are the study area of anything up to six children, who share one pen between them. Comparing these conditions to the classes I see in England is almost impossible, you can not compare an English class of thirty children to an African class of six hundred children!

I was however, given the wonderful chance of visiting the International Primary School in Muheza. A private school, where all the students are fee paying, run by a group of English, Catholic nuns. Although the school is yet to be fully completed it is making remarkable progress, entering one of the classrooms is like stepping back into the Western World, where all the children have pens and books and pencils and the walls are covered in bright posters and teaching aids. The rooms are light and airy, and a large playing field allows plenty of room for their favourite sport - football!

The pre-primary and primary classes still have to share the dining hall. Which, when we visited, did not have any tables or chairs, but all the children are provided with a healthy school lunch - Ugali and beans, rice and beans or cassava and beans, all made with milk for added calcium. For some of these children it will be the best, and possibly the only meal they will receive although their parents must have more money than average to pay the school fees. Like the classroom the dining hall was a model of western life, with a serving hatch and a group of dinner ladies!

We met the Nun in charge, Sister Gwen, who told us all about her plans for the school, and how she feels the local people reacted to them when the arrived. She hopes to add another two or three classrooms to accommodate for the higher standards, as currently the school can only take standards one to four, and unless another building can be erected by the start of the next academic year (January 2008) then the current standard four class will have to find another school, or they school will have to refuse to take on any more pupils.

As an English medium school, the pupils are taught in English, with Swahili as a subject, the reverse of the state run schools, but the same as all Secondary Schools. This added to that wonderful feeling of almost going into a school back at home. Another factor that added to this was the presence of two large school buses! A rare sight indeed, especially to see them driving at a reasonable speed.

What makes this visit stick out to me though wasn't just the fact that it reminded me of home, but how well it coincided with another national event that had people all over the country talking for weeks. The country's President met with the fourteen smartest children in the country, based on midterm and terminal exam results, and thirteen of these children came from private schools. Now, you can call that coincidence if you wish, but when you compare the quality of education in the two schools I saw, then it doesn't take a genius to work it out. The private schools are largely church run, and almost exclusively managed by Mzungu (Europeans).

Here we demand a better standard of education for our children, we are actively pushing more and more students into University, because we realise the importance of an education in the long term picture. Education is seen to be paramount to our success and studies show a direct link between the highest level of education you have earned and your salary. That connection is not made in Tanzania.

Maybe one day they will learn. But with the state of state schools, I doubt it.