World Education Week - 4th - 8th October 2021
Education is recognised as the best tool to beat poverty and create stronger and more equal communities, yet for many communities there are many hurdles that prevent young people from accessing a quality education.
Through our work we learnt to recognise the interdependency of education with many other factors and during this World Education Week we are going to talk about 5 of them.
We look forward to your thoughts on each topic, please leave a comment below.
Barrier: Demotivated Teachers
We have huge admiration to the dedication of teaches all over the world who strive to inspire young people to become knowledgeable, skilful, kind, compassionate, and confident adults.
When teachers have to work in shockingly challenging conditions, in over crowded classrooms, with no resources, no support from the community, and low pay, it can be hugely demotivating.
In Tanzania, especially in the rural areas it is expected that teachers will be provided with accommodation, but that rarely happens, so teachers live either in local homes or travel from the nearest village or town. In the rainy season this can cause delays when roads and bridges are washed away.
We work with the teachers to help them make their lives easier where possible.
We provide the school with teaching and learning resources like books and photocopiers
We ensure they have good quality, gender separated toilets
We work to ensure their staff rooms have enough desks and chairs for them to work at when not in the classroom
In rural areas we have built and renovated teachers houses
We ran English Language training courses and sponsor teachers to go on IT courses
We have run teacher savings and loans programmes to help them with their external income sources
We recognise their efforts
Barrier: Lack of resources such as books, desks, teaching and learning equipment
When 10 students sit around one book, it is near impossible to teach. Teachers resort to writing the text on the blackboard rather than actually teaching. So much time is lost caused by the lack of books
Having 5 students squashed at a desk made for 3 does not create a good environment in which to learn
The solutions to these challenges are not rocket science, the solution is investment in fixtures, fittings and the resources that the teachers need to do their job.
We target to get enough desks for a ratio of 3 students to a desk.
Ideally we would like 1 book per student per subject, but our short term goal is is to achieve one book per desk per subject. We also add murals in the classrooms to aid subliminal learning and support teachers.
We have facilitated and supported schools to introduce IT for the teachers for school management and funded for some teachers to attend IT courses.
Barrier: Clean Water and Sanitation - Sustainable Development Goal 6
How can a school operate without water?
How can a students stay healthy when their toilets are so unhygienic that they fear to use them?
When students have to walk to a mile to collect water from a local tap, or a well, or a puddle, they are not in school learning.
When a student walks home to use the toilet or does not come into school because they are having their period and the school has no facilities to support them, then they are not in school learning.
When a young person has no hand washing facilities to wash their hands after using the toilet and before having lunch, they get sick and miss school
The Livingstone Tanzania Trust works with the community to address their schools water challenges as we have done in Waangwaray, Sinai, Managhat, Malangi, Gendi, Bambay, Mutuka and FT Sumaye.
7,687 people have benefited from our water projects
133 toilet cubicles have been built/renovated
14,040 people have benefited from our hand washing programme
Barrier: Overcrowded, dangerous and dull classrooms - Sustainable Development Goal 4 - Quality Education
How does and teacher teach and how does a student learn when there are 100+ students in a classroom?
The Tanzanian Government has a target of no more than 45 children in a classroom, but the community, living in poverty, lack the funds to build the classrooms and so whilst young people are attending school they are not getting a quality education.
In addition poor school management, poor funding and the occasional earth tremor have resulted in a deterioration of the quality of the existing stock of classrooms. Rain erosion, termite infestations, poor construction methods and daily wear and tear have made many classrooms unsafe.
We work closely with the community, the school development committees and the town planners to renovate and build classrooms so that schools can move towards 45 students to a class and students get more teacher time.
We build to last and we build to the high specifications of the Tanzanian Government. We have this year we renovated our 57th and 58th classrooms and built from scratch classrooms 59 and 60, all since 2007. We have also built/renovated 15 teachers’ offices.
The classrooms are safe, bright, inspirational and encourage learning.
Barrier: Hunger - Sustainable Development Goal 1 - ZERO HUNGER
All people need nutrients for their development and calories for their energy, and this is especially true for the young - hunger affect a child’s ability to concentrate and to take in and retain new information.
Where a school meal is not provided children are more likely to either sleep in the classrooms or not turn up at all, either way they are either mentally or physically ‘not present’ which impacts on their academic performance.
By sharing our knowledge of the impacts of a poor diet with the community we have been able to motivate them to establish their own community wide school meals programme whereby the community work out how ALL the children will be fed and the levels of contributions needed to achieve that goal. We pledge that each school with a school feeding programme will be provided with a fuel efficient stove so that the negative environmental impact of the programme is reduced and we encourage all schools to establish tree nurseries to ensure they are planting for the future.
The meals are life enhancing and contribute to a thriving learning environment with improved attendance which contributes to improved academic performance.
In a normal year between 400,000 to 500,000 meals are provided to primary school students entirely funded by the community.
Because the community as a whole have agreed to support the poorest families we are able to say that …….