8 VSO in Tanzania

One of the areas that VSO is involved with in Tanzania (Voluntary Services Overseas: http://www.vsointernational.org/) is Education. Primary and Secondary teachers have been volunteering in Tanzania for many years, on the front line delivering to the students of Tanzania. Now that VSO have been in Tz for 52 years they have changed their approach slightly, and teachers on the current project of EQUIP-T-ELT are here to support the Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) in terms of teaching in the English language and using various student-centred methodologies. It’s a project designed by the Ministry of Education here in Tz together with the British Council and VSO, and funded partly by DfID (UK). Primary school results have been fantastic, but secondary school results have not, so the idea is to support all 34 government TTCs in achieving ‘quality education’ which will filter down through into the schools via the teachers from the TTC.

The Iringa Team (Juanito, Carla and myself) are supporting 6 of these TTCs, all identified on the map in the southern highlands of Tanzania: Iringa, Songea, Tandala, Tukuyu, Mpuguso and Sumbawanga. The plan is to visit each college 4 times a year, and support however we can. Some TTCs are for primary teachers only; some are for secondary teachers only; some are for both. We designed our first visit so we could introduce ourselves and the project, and conduct a ‘Needs Analysis’, which was essentially carrying out interviews and a survey to find out how they define quality education, what obstacles they have in achieving this definition, and how they think we can help. The first thing we have to inform them of is that we are not bringing a bucket of money. This has stumped a few people, understandably, as money is the primary need; however we are reporting to the Ministry; to the country donors for education, and our partner organisations, so we can at least point out the (blindingly obvious) barriers such as overcrowding; poor infrastructure etc. Can we help? I hope so.