Problems of Tanzania's schoolsystem

Tanzanias schools face many problems: Institutional ones, infrastructural ones but also problems coming from traditions and moral values within the African society.

Over the last years the Tanzanian government built many schools in order to guarantee countrywide access to governmental education. The great efforts of the government are commendable but many severe problems remain unsolved. While schools had been built, the education of teachers had been neglected so that the government had to start crash courses in order to provide the schools with enough teachers. It is obvious that the teachers having finished such a crash course do not fulfil the requirements of a modern and human schoolsystem.

The crash course teachers often have to teach in school buildings, which do not offer any kind of pleasing atmosphere. The rooms are too small and the children are too many. Usually 60 children share one room. As there are not enough wooden benches most of them are sitting on the floor. Not only in rural areas does this mean that they are sitting on dark red clay ground.

Another big problem for Tanzania's schools are the traditions of the Tanzanian society and its old tribes. In western societies we are used to students who go home and do their homework as they had been told by the teachers. In Tanzania we cannot expect that from our students because of various reasons. In the poor areas of the towns or in rural areas the hats and small houses do not offer any place or desk where the students actually could do their homework. There is no space to store books or exercise books properly, that's why we cannot let the students take home books from school.

However, these are small problems compared to the fact that many students even if there was space for doing homework in the house would not have time for learning as they are forced to help the family earning money or simply working in the house. In the morning many children have to get water from the few pump stations or the lake and carry the buckets to the hats. Older children sell chewing gum or soda on the street after school has finished.

These are just some few major problems; there are many more to talk about. With our school we try not only to educate the children, but also to inform the parents and work with them together so that at least some problems can be solved.