Education and School Development

A quality education is one of the greatest gifts you can be given in life.

A quality education opens up opportunities in life to happiness, peace and prosperity.

In Tanzania, education starts with pre-primary (aged 5-6), followed by seven years of primary schooling all in Swahili culminating in the stand 7 exams. This is followed by 4four years of secondary, where O-Levels are taken in English, then two years in upper secondary for A-levels, college or vocational training. After upper secondary, students attend university or college.

When we explore the root causes of poor academic performance, we uncover the many challenges students face:

• Some schools have teaching and learning environments that are unsafe, uninspiring, and under resourced.

• Overcrowded classrooms in both primary and secondary schools due to insufficient classrooms

• Insufficient teaching and learning materials make teaching and learning difficult.

• Schools often have unsafe and unhygienic toilets which are a breeding ground for diseases resulting in students being fearful of using them which contributes to absenteeism, especially for young girls.

• Poorly explained puberty and the stigma associated with menstruation.

  A lack of lunchtime meals can result in stunted physical and cranial development, afternoon tiredness, absenteeism.

• Poorly motivated and managed teachers, some of whom have to travel great distances to their schools due to lack of teachers’ accommodation.

• Long distances to school can result in tiredness in class, truancy and increase the risk of physical and sexual abuse, especially for girls.

• Low levels of parental interest or engagement in education.

We are working with the Town and Ward Education, Health, Planning and Community Development Officers, School Development Committees, Head teachers, students and parents to address these challenges so that the goals set by the stakeholders can be achieved.

COMMUNITY GOALS

1

For aT LEAST 95% OF ALL PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS TO pass Standard 7 by 2030

2

FOR TOILETS AT ALL SCHOOLS IN Babati TO meet the needs of ALL the users

3

FOR Babati Town Council to build a new Secondary School by 2028

Our Programmes

We invite donors to join us at the table so that together we can provide the support needed to help the community achieve their goals.

Classrooms, Offices and Kitchens

18,783 Students have benefited from an improved learning environment

Through participatory development techniques we work with the community and other stakeholders to transform dangerous, overcrowded and under resourced schools into a bright, inspirational and well resourced environment where all feel safe to teach and learn.

There are any schools within Babati, both primary and secondary, that are in need of support to either renovate, complete or build classrooms, teachers offices and kitchens with storerooms and we have priority schools should you wish to support our efforts.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

25,567 people have benefited from our Water, SanitatIon and hygiene Work

Sadly many of the toilets in schools in Babati are dark, unhygienic, unsafe, lack privacy, lack water, lack facilities for girls and up until recently lacked hand washing facilities.

Through our Mikono Salama (Safe Hands) Programme, we have ensured that EVERY primary school now has hand washing facilities. Read our latest report HERE

Though our Tubaki Shuleni Salama (Lets Stay Safe at School) Programme we have so far worked with 6 communities to raise awareness at community and school level on the challenges of puberty and the importance of good menstrual hygiene practices. Report HERE

Progress Report

From the graph we can deduce:

1. The number of schools achieving a 95-100% pass rate has fallen while the number of schools achieving 90-100% pass rate has increased to its highest levels.

There are many factors that contribute to the pass rate.

• there has been a concerted effort by the town council to support and reward the teaching staff through public awards for achievements and trips to visit the local National Parks

• The government has mandated communities to provide all full time students with a lunch time meal - a programme kickstarted by LTT in 2012

• improved book ratios in schools

• provision of teachers’ accommodation to reduce travel time, absenteeism and additional cost to teachers

• improved teaching and learning environments with bigger, brighter, safer classrooms

• improved sanitation and hygiene at schools for teachers and student alike

In the coming years LTT wants to focus on the worst performing schools and support them to progress up the charts. We are doing this through our teacher training programme which started in 2023 and focused on school leadership and in 2024 focused on teacher training and support. We are now in the roll out, mentoring and monitoring stage.

Waangwaray Primary School

LTT’s first school where we revamped all the classrooms and built 3 more and built teachers toilets. We completed 2 teachers houses started by the community. We built a kitchen with a fuel efficient stove and started a feeding programme. We brought water and electricity to the school, and added a satellite dish, and laptops and photocopier. We build a large school farm with cows, goats, chickens, ducks and fish ponds, a farm store and office. Bee hives were installed in the local forested area and tree nurseries established.

We handed the completed school back to the community in 2018.

Gendi Primary School

This is LTT’s 5th school, renovated with full community engagement and participation. We drilled a bore hole and installed a solar powered water system that is gravity fed throughout the school along with rainwater harvesting on most of the buildings. We built a kitchen with fuel efficient stoves and food/fuel storage space. We installed a large fenced market garden with 10,000 litres water storage, drip fed vegetable plots and fruit trees. We built new toilets for students and staff.

Mutuka Secondary school

When a teacher from Waangwaray transferred to Mutuka and started to introduce some of LTT’s ideas into this secondary school we wanted to support him. We supported the transition from open fire to fuel efficiency and with the savings made he built storage shelves in his chemistry lab’s storage room. The school’s market garden, kitchen, science labs and toilets all struggled with erratic and often insufficient water so, in collaboration with the whole community and Bawasa (Babati Water and Sanitation Department), we laid fresh pipes from the source across farm lands, to the school and local homes. This significantly improved their water security and allowed us to build new toilets for the students and enabled the community to build a dormitory where we have provided bunk beds.

Ziwani Primary School

Whilst this is not a full partner school we have worked there, building brand new toilets for boys and girls and a fuel efficient stove. We are also building in 2024 an additional unisex toilet for students with disabilities to use.

Sinai Primary School

This was LTT’s second school partnership, we revamped classrooms, teacher offices and built 4 classrooms and a store. We brought water and electricity to the school, built student and teachers toilets and started a small market garden. We built a kitchen from which we started a school meals programme.

Sadly community participation fell below our required levels and we stopped working with the community and school.

in 2020 we stepped in to avoid closure of the school by supporting the community to build more student toilets after the existing ones collapsed. 

Sawe Primary School

This is LTT’s 6th school development programme and the first one we built from scratch with huge levels of community engagement. In January 2024 it became the first community primary school in the whole region to have 2 classrooms for each year group. We also built student and teacher toilets, a kitchen with fuel efficient stove and store and two teachers offices. We connected the school to the local water supply but also installed 155,000 litres of water storage off the roofs of 16 classrooms. HERE is the latest report. The school was handed over to the community in March 2024 and 100% of the student who sat their National Standard 7 exams passed. 

Frederick Sumaye Secondary School

As a secondary school that is fed from students from Malangi, Bambay and Gendi we have worked with this school and the community to help it improve. We started by funding a shallow borehole (the school’s water table is low due to proximity to the lake). We then supported the building of a kitchen with store and fuel efficient stoves to reduce firewood consumption. We then built the toilets for the already built dormitory building which we also fitted out with bunk beds. We have also added two additional cubicles for the girls as well as an incinerator.

Daghaloy and Harra Primary Schools

Through the Tubaki Shuleni Salama programme we built new toilets at Daghaloy Primary School. Where there was great need we have sought to support the communities to develop solutions.