Exam results
Sometimes as a way to retain contact, I look up the examination results of the primary schools we worked with in Tanzania, just to keep the memory banks operating. I won’t name the school I’m highlighting; it’s fairly remote, but it’s one where we had good environmental success, so I have a soft spot for it. It wasn’t only environmental success though; what began as building a new teacher’s office, ended up building most of a new school. We first encountered the headteacher working in a partly falling down, mud brick office and it was he who initially provided the impetus for the environmental programme, and encouraged me to source funding for the building project… but as happens, teachers get swapped around at the whim of a district inspector. There can be all sorts of reasons for teachers to be moved around, but none of them are for the benefit of students in the classroom, and he was moved on.
There was a pair of half-sisters; same father different mothers from a polygamy marriage, which isn’t unheard of in Maasai culture; they were students at the school, and as soon as they were home, they changed into Maasai attire. I hardly recognised them. They wanted me to talk to their father to convince him the value of allowing them to study at secondary school. At the time less than ten percent of students were able to go on to secondary school, but happily that has improved somewhat. I told them that his answer would be for me to fund them, or more likely, for me to marry one or both of them! I told them my culture wouldn’t allow it. I can’t say that they were particularly disappointed.
Their father was a traditional man, who we had supplied with quite a few trees and ‘because the girls had been trained in tree watering, it was their job to ensure the survival of his trees’. I’m happy to say that they were successful. While we were visiting him, several men were butchering a cattle beast; maybe not I the way I would butcher one, but it was clean and hygienic. The meat was to go to the men and the innards were cleaned by the women and eaten by the women. They had a cooking hut which was clean with a clay-dung mixture on the floor that was shiny and clean. Maasai culture emerged in the 15th century, which of course has adapted over the years, but their ways were set many generations ago.
There are a number of challenges in the school learning environment, not least the culture; this school is not a Maasai school, there were five tribes studying there. The teachers mostly had reached standard IV and had been exposed to ‘pressure-cooker training’, in order to supply the demand for teachers. One hundred and two pupils sat the examinations, and three quarters of them passed the Swahili, Social Studies and Vocational skills; half passed Civic and Moral; under a third passed Mathematics; a quarter passed Science and Technology; and only three passed English. It shouldn’t be forgotten that Swahili is a second language for all of them after their tribal language.
Most kids have chores between school and dark, which comes quickly at seven o’clock… usually there are three tasks, collecting firewood or water and cutting feed for their domestic animals. Very few have lighting, so mostly it is too dark to do extra studies. Most kids were happy with their lot and were disciplined both at home and at school. And they have a sense of humour, as demonstrated by the following: While waiting for a big noise to come to open the new school, to entertain the somewhat bored kids, I told them the story of the Little Red Hen. I chose the bigger Maasai girl to be the red hen, and others to be a cow, a dog, a pig and a frog. And I whispered to them what to say at the appropriate time. The boy who was the pig, snorted as he said the words which had the school laughing but the small fellow who was the frog jumped around saying, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. Which set the school off again. And as it turned out the school insisted we tell the story again to the big noise, who, as they do, had arrived late.
Having been responsible for the education of four Tanzanian kids, I understand the challenges, the pity being, a lot of intelligence is being wasted or at least not being tapped into. So how did education turn out for those four kids? One is working in the prime minister’s office, one is using her secretarial skills to the full, another is working in dentistry and the other didn’t manage so well, which rates well with the results from the school. But the kids doing well had nothing to do with me, they had to apply themselves, work hard and have a goal… just like the little red hen.
