A Whole Different System of Education

Several entries ago, I promised more explanation of the Tanzanian system of education — grading, testing, instruction methods, student discipline, etc.  These aspects are all heavily entwined, and most of it is quite different from the American system, at least the present-day one.  While at times I have opinions about the pros and cons of the various aspects of the system, I mostly tried to withhold judgment and operate within the system at hand.  The smaller details of the system seemed to be followed inconsistently, but the basic structure is fairly standard throughout the country — at least, I have read many very similar accounts from blogs and memoirs of other short- and long-term volunteers.  Some of the contents of this blog entry I’ve written about before (in the context of the primary school), but other parts I haven’t, so come along with me and learn!

Textbooks are severely limited, especially in the rural and poorer areas of the country, i.e. the vast majority of schools.  The teacher may have access to a textbook, but the students typically do not.  This means that anything the teacher wants the students to learn must be written by the teacher on the chalkboard and copied by the students into their notebooks.  This is a time-consuming endeavor.  Typically the teacher will write a bunch of information on the board, give the students time to copy it (which for some reason always seems to take significantly longer for the students to write than it did for the teacher), and then go back and explain the meaning of the information the students just wrote down.

Steven delivering information to students

A student copying notes into her own notebook

In the rural and poorer areas of the country, there is also very limited access to electricity.  Some communities may have electricity that comes to the village via power lines, but many villages (including Pommern) get their electricity from solar panels (free to fuel, but expensive to purchase the panels) or a generator (expensive to buy both the fuel and the generator).  Ironically, there is a massive set of power lines that passes right over Pommern, but there is no access point to these power lines.  I never did figure out why not. 

The power lines that pass right over the village near the Catholic church, on the east edge of the village.  (As red as the dirt is in most of Pommern, I don't know why it's not really red in this particular area — but I promise that this is really Pommern!)

The limited electricity means that the technology that we rely so heavily on in present-day American schools — like computers, printers, photocopiers, etc. — is rare.  Pommern Secondary School has a small solar-powered computer lab, where classes are occasionally taught (though I never saw one), and a couple of printers.  Resources for these printers are expensive though, so the printers are rarely used.  Whereas I can regularly run photocopies of homework assignments, tests, extra information not found in the textbook, etc. at home, this is not possible in Pommern.  So just like information must be disseminated in slow methodical fashion, so must homework assignments, test questions, etc., and the whole process is again very time-consuming.

One of two solar panels at the school — these are used to power the computer lab.  A generator is also used to provide electricity in the dorms and some of the classrooms for a couple hours in the evenings (a single light per large room!)

Door to the computer lab.  I hardly ever saw anyone in here and wonder if the teachers don't really have the experience necessary to actually teach any computer classes.  Certainly Global Volunteers could be of use in this way.

Inside the computer lab (you can see the one light for this classroom located on the ceiling right at the top of the photo).

As for grading and testing, again the system is very different.  Students advance from one level of education to the next by passing national standardized exams during Standards IV and VII and Forms II, IV, and VI.  This would be like if American students had to take a test during 5^th grade, 8^th grade, 10^th grade, 12^th grade, and again after two years of “pre-college.”  Any year you do not pass your test, you stay at that grade level for another year and then take the test again.  Education in Tanzania is mandatory through Standard VII (8^th grade), and students who don’t pass their Standard VII exams can’t go on to secondary school.

In American schools, at least in Iowa (and yes, it is difficult to explain to Tanzanians that U.S. education systems and laws vary from state to state), standardized tests do not have these high stakes.  Student advance from one grade to the next by earning satisfactory grades during the year, or at least it works this way in theory since sometimes students are advanced to the next grade purely for social (or parental) reasons, not because they’re academically ready for it.  Once students hit junior high (or high school in some districts), the grades students earn in class actually begin to mean something.  A failing grade means you can’t advance to the next class, and colleges care as much about your high school grade point average as they do about your ACT or SAT score.

Such is not the case in Tanzania.  No marks (grades) are kept.  Whether a student does their homework, gets their homework answers correct, performs well on an in-class test, etc. is relatively meaningless.  On the other hand, I imagine peer pressure and “saving face” could be used as motivators to some extent.  I do recall a math test being given to the Standard IV students at the primary school last time I was in Pommern, and when the tests were returned to the students, every single student’s name and score was announced to the class — from the highest mark all the way down to the lowest one.  That certainly wouldn’t be acceptable in the present-day American system, but there the children who earned high marks received the 3-clap applause from their classmates while the students who earned low marks were laughed at by their peers. 

One very blurry picture of the teacher and me in the Standard IV class from last time (taken by Edward, and the only photo that exists of that class)

So with no grades kept or GPAs earned, when it comes to advancing in one’s education, the only thing that matters is the national exam.  One might think that this fact would motivate students to work hard and study hard all the time so that they’re ready for those exams, but at least at Pommern Secondary School that did not seem to be the case.

Steven and I would frequently assign a homework question or two at the end of our class sessions, but most of the time students would not complete the assignment.  When Steven finished a unit, he did not give a test.  We just moved onto the next unit.  Honestly, giving a test in a crowded classroom would be difficult — how would you prevent cheating?  The only way would be by giving students sitting next to each other different questions, but how do you do that when you can’t photocopy a test for everyone and instead have to put the questions on the board?  These were just some of the many, many rhetorical questions I asked myself about the education system.

A crowded classroom (Form IIC)

And how do you motivate students to do homework or to study on a regular basis when their marks don’t matter?  That is the million dollar question.  Or the 16 billion Tanzanian shilling question, if you prefer that unit of measurement.  In either case, the answer seemed to be that you don’t.  Or you threaten the students with non-academic consequences, which you may or may not actually follow through with.  Which brings me to the topic of student behavior and discipline, and that ended up being a rather lengthy explanation so I decided to make it an entry of its own.  Stay tuned.