Researching the underlaying causes of poor academic performance

When we started to work with the Head Teachers at some of the worst performing schools in Babati Town, we saw that they were mostly clumped together in the north-east part of Babati, in a rural area. Why is this part of Babati performing any worse than any other part of rural Babati, or urban Babati to that matter?

To understand this, in August 2024 we started a 2 month process of sitting with different community groups to learn from them what their challenges are when it comes to getting their children educated.

With the permission of the town and local officials we are asking the elders, the youth and those in between, we are consulting the farmers, the business people, the leaders. Groups are separated by gender and different tools being used to help the community open up and share. We are learning of the history, the culture, the religions, the livelihoods, the geography, the attitudes and the aspirations of the communities

We are looking forward to sharing with them our findings and sitting with them to hear their thoughts on them. We do not know exactly what will come from this, but we expect the community to reach out to us in any areas where they feel they might want support, and together we will coproduce a programme to address the challenges.

What does success look like??

For us success will be addressing the issues that hinder their young people accessing a quality education which might enable them to live outside of poverty. Along the way we expect to see many smaller successes as determined by the community.