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The Headmaster, School Manager and I have been planning and running teacher training workshops for a few weeks now. The staff have responded very well and we have received quite a bit of positive feedback from them, which is very encouraging. I’ve also realized, often with quite a jolt, how little training the average teacher does receive in Tanzania. For example, they do not know anything about special needs, they do not generally do more than talk and write on the board, they  usually give only paper and pencil tests with no other forms of assessment and they have not been encouraged to reflect on their teaching practice. In short, if students do not succeed in their classes, it is simply because the student is ‘dull’. Survival of the fittest is the name of the game.  Students are supposed to struggle as they say. It is a normal part of education in Tanzania. So we are trying to break the cycle and change the teaching culture at our school. We are also trying to encourage staff to take the initiative in working with students outside of class time, both to offer extra help and co-curriculars. We are a boarding school after all. Yet their contracts specify working hours from 8am to 4pm and weekends off. I’m not sure whose bright idea it was to put that in there! So changing teachers’ attitudes toward work is a bit of an uphill battle.

The challenge is that our school has been charged with producing excellent results on the national exams next year. We are supposed to be a model school. We are supposed to have a science and math focus. Yet, there is a severe lack of competence in the classroom. We are still lacking teaching materials (for example, we have little apparatus and no chemicals in the laboratories). So the pressure is on. I think the Headmaster feels the full weight of this, but thankfully he is quite ambitious and sets his standards high. For example, he has laid down a rigorous schedule of running workshops five days a week, however due to various events and absences (recent elections, births of babies, health issues, power outages, etc) we’ve had quite a few days off.

I’m hopeful that change will take place slowly but surely. I think it’s a matter of getting teachers to see students as individuals who deserve all our efforts and only the best from us. If they start to put some thought and enthusiasm into their teaching, it will make a huge difference.

Cheers,

Marike

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