Transforming Tanzanian schools with Technology

Many of the schools we support have challenges with recruiting teachers, particularly in the rural areas.  The government has not appointed new teachers for the last two years and many schools have no science teachers at all.  Without a science qualification students cannot continue in their education beyond form 4.  If they have no science teacher, students are expected to learn by themselves and, if they are lucky, teachers from other subject areas may help.  Often they don't even have access to text books or other materials. 

Some schools have succeeded in getting unemployed graduates to become volunteer teachers while they seek employment.  In these cases they have had no teacher training so we are helping them become good teachers by partnering them up with volunteer retired teachers to help with advice and mentoring via WhatsApp. 

However some schools now have access to internet access via satellite broadband provided via the UK Space Agency.  Often this came without any training in how to use it efficiently to access suitable educational materials. We have been helping with this via WhatsApp groups for subject teachers and presentations via Skype, and sharing lists of materials targetted at the Tanzanian curriculum.  For schools that do not have internet access we have provided downloaded content such as Khan Academy on Raspberry Pi computers. 

Many students walk very long distances to get to school.  However often there is no clear data about this because the areas around schools are not mapped and the villages the students come from do not appear.  Teachers are working with the Crowd2Map programme to map the areas around their schools using printed fieldpapers so they have a clearer idea of how big an issue this is and which students are particularly disadvantaged by this, and present the need for school hostels. 

Thank you again for your generosity, it is very much appreciated.

Janet

Many of the schools we support are also involved with our mapping project, Crowd2Map. In fact this was born out of the frustration of driving around in the rain through rivers for 2 hours trying to find Ikondo Secondary School in Kagera.  Now the History teacher Alpha Ngailla there is an avid mapper and has trained many local organisations about how mapping can help them.  He is also compiling a report on how the distance students have to walk to school has an impact on their performance.  Before schools like Ikondo had maps of where their students came from this was impossible to do.

As part of the Crowd2Map project we organised the first State of the Map Tanzania conference that allowed us to bring our local representatives and teachers we work with for 3 days of IT training that they can take back to their communities.

We have also supported an IT workshop for schools in Kagera that will help teachers better maintain their laptops.

While in Dar es Salaam I have met many people working with educational technology who will help support our projects.  We are also going to work with Femina HIP who support girls education via their magazine and a network of clubs and We will have also set up a mapping project and are having a big online mapathon on Sunday.  We are supporting a community radio station to broadcast programmes to help villagers who missed out on schooling get a second chance at an education.. 

We are also organising a seminar at SOAS on January 15th about the Global Learning X-Prize currently doing field tests in Tanzania - please join us online if you are able. 

Many thanks for your support!

Links:

• First State of the Map Tanzania a great success