• Reference: P-TZ-IAC-002
• Approval date: 05/09/2007
• Start date: 30/06/2008
• Appraisal Date: 17/04/2007
• Status: On goingOnGo
• Location: Mainland Tanzanai
• Implementing Agency: MIN OF AGRIC, FOOD,COOPERATIVES

Kilangalanga Secondary School, deep in the centre of Tanzania, has never been more popular with students and parents alike.  Mothers and fathers are literally queuing up to enrol their children there.

The reason is the new science laboratories, built and equipped as a result of the ADF-funded Tanzania Education II project.  Before the biology, physics and chemistry laboratories were installed, science lessons were dull, abstract lectures.  Very few students were interested.  Now there’s a new enthusiasm for the sciences.

Kilangalalanga’s headmaster, Albert Mabiki, explains:  “Since we got the labs, the numbers taking the Form 4 exams have tripled from 40 to 120 students.  At Form 5 level, last year 27 students joined.  Prior to the project, there were only seven.”

One student, Willson Werema, who wants to be an engineer and has a talent for
mathematics and the sciences, said: “The labs are very important for our school.  They let the students find their own solutions.” 

At another school in the region, Kongwa Secondary School, where laboratories have been built because of the project, it is a similar story.  Assistant headmaster, Kefa Kunasa, said the practical opportunities offered by the laboratories meant science students were learning much more.  “If you compare the sciences and the arts, there are more students enrolled in the arts, but those in the sciences are getting better grades, and that is due to the laboratories”, said Mr Kunasa.

In total, the loan provided by the project in Tanzania has paid for 108 science laboratories, training for approximately 3,000 science and maths teachers and teacher trainers, and the supply of science and maths textbooks to 306 secondary schools.

The Education II programme has been almost too successful in Zanzibar.  Primary schools on the Indian Ocean island have too many children wanting to get in.  The project financed classroom construction and the supply of textbooks.  Deputy Principal, Abdulla M. Abdulla of the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training of Zanzibar said: “The project has helped increase enrolment.  The gross enrolment rate for primary education is now 106 per cent.  Before the project, it was 84 per cent.”

One reason is that it’s more comfortable and easier to study in a classroom than outside.  At Bumbwini Primary and Secondary School, 17-year-old Awesu Ali said: “Before, students studied sitting among the trees.  Now we all study in the classrooms.  This makes us study harder.”

Awesu was helping seven younger students to prepare for the government English exams that they must pass to move up from Form 2 to Form 3.  They are so keen, they work at the weekend.  “I teach them on Saturdays because I like to help them.  After all, a teacher helped me.”  Mr Abdulla added: “It’s not unusual to see students at the school on Saturday”.

Tanzania’s Education II project is not just for school students.  Adults benefit, too, particularly those who missed out on education in their early life and face a lack of opportunity as a result.

That part of the programme is the Integrated Community-Based Adult Education (ICBAE) initiative.  Participants learn to read and write, to keep budgets and records for businesses and practical skills. 

Two ICBAE graduates are Mary Fanuel and Joyce Mcharo, from Soni in north east Tanzania.  Mary, leader of her ICBAE group, said in learning to read and write, they help each other and “make sure no one gets left behind”.   Joyce learned how to be a tailor and, like other graduates of ICBAE, is teaching other young women how to cut and sew.

YOUNIS Abdi Ibrahim - OSHD2

Finance source	Amount
ADF	UAC 20,000,000
Government	UAC 634,000,000
Co-financier	UAC 100,000,000
Total	UAC 754,000,000