Feed A Hungry Mind

Whole School Development Programme

We have had a busy three months with more training seminars, and liaison with education officials in Dar es Salaam.

At the end of September Jane Firth visited again for three weeks. Jane visited teachers who had attended her previous seminars for teaching early-years mathematics. Jane also gave a four-day training seminar for the same 22 teachers who were chosen by the District Education Office to attend her seminar in July. This is so that Jane's work can be shared as widely as possible. The seminar was on methods of teaching basic mathematics to Standard I and Standard II pupils who are seven and eight years old. Jane was, again, encouraged by the teachers' ability to pick-up the new ideas and to understand the reasons behind the teaching methods.

In September school committee members (the equivalent of school governors) from Sembeti primary school, Samanga primary school and Mengeni primary school received training for four days. The roles of the school committee members were examined, as well as the calling and conduct of meetings. Attention was also given to school budgets and possible ways to increase school income. Importantly, the relationships between the committee and other stakeholders such as the teaching staff, parents, the community and village government were considered with much discussion. The training was facilitated by a tutor from Singa Chini Teacher Training College and a member of the District Inspectorate.

All of our training sessions are conducted in Swahili so that the participants derive maximum benefit. Jane Firth works with someone to translate for herr. George Kasenga, the manager of the Whole School Development Programme, organised all the training sessions. George is also carrying on the weekly visits to local schools as part of the in-service training for the teachers and particularly the school management teams. However, his visits were interrupted in September by the national leaving examinations for Standard VII pupils and the mid-term break.

Dr Anne Samson, who supervises and researches for this programme, visited in August and September and attended many meetings in order to assess progress and to plan for the coming year. Dr Samson, with the project co-ordinator Dilly Mtui, also visited a project operating in Mikindani, Mtwara with a view to assisting and advising them.

The Director made four visits to Dar es Salaam for meetings with the Minister for Education, his Permanent Secretary and others. The Director also had meetings at Dfid and Uwezo. All of these stem from initial meetings in 2008 concerning recommendations for course books for teaching English in primary schools. The pupils' books emphasise sentence and structural patterns as well as reading comprehension. Each teacher's books is extensive with teaching notes and explanations so that the teachers are able to understand what to do in each lesson. It is hoped that the books will be adopted for national use as the teaching of English in the primary schools is poor and is affecting the future education of all concerned, particularly as secondary education is all in English.

We would like to thank our donors for their support, and we hope that our long-term approach to improving the quality of primary education is seen as the sensible approach. Short-term programmes or projects do not seem feasible for bringing about lasting change, and change by its very nature is a slow process if all those involved are to understand the need for it and the benefits to be derived.

October 2010