By Shaaban Fundi
There have been several discussions on the failures of the education system in Tanzania and to whether or not it is meeting its goals of educating the youth. The data from a cross-sectional study in over 38 districts of the Tanzanian education system by TWAWEZA and UWEZO has provided some of the answers to this difficult but necessary discussion. Access the report here. The findings from this study paint a gleam picture. At the primary school level, the majority of our children are not learning as well as acquiring skills they need to be successful post primary education. The gap is much higher if you compare rural and urban primary school.
Why are Tanzanian Youngsters not Learning?
The is no a single answer to this question. Several factors contribute in one way or the other to this phenomenon. The learning activities used in most classrooms do not reflect the interests of children. We are still using teaching strategies that are outdated, non-engaging and based on memorization to teach children whose attention spans have changed over the years. Most of the digital-age children have very short attention spans. Lecturing for hours without interactive activities, hands-on-activities, and experiential learning activities will merely be beneficial to them. In my opinion, we cannot continue to teach non interactive lessons, lessons that don’t address children brain development theories, motivation theories, cognitive theories, and expect our children to learn. In addition, teacher absenteeism, lack of classroom resources, and pathetic salaries contribute to the failures seen.
I call for Colleges “UDSM , SUA, and UDOM” to do research and find out what actually interests our young people today. These colleges should be at the forefront in the development of curricula that reflects the interests of our the young people. A bottom up approach for developing curricula from the the school level, the district level, the regional level, and the country at large needs to be used. Since Tanzania is a huge country, curricula diversification is very important. What kids learn in Mtwara should reflect the opportunities available for them, and what kids learn Tabora should do the same. We need to move past the one-size-fits-all mentality in education policy formulation, delivery, and especially the curricula itself.
Background of the Education System in Tanzania
Tanzania has a K-13 education system. It starts with the kindergarten level for one year, the primary level for seven years, the secondary school level for four years, and the advanced secondary school level for two years. Currently, there is a multifaceted primary school education in Tanzania composed of English Medium Schools (the very minority) from political and affluent families and those attending regular primary education (the majority). And Within the regular education system, the facility and staffing quality differences between the schools in rural areas and those in urban areas are quite staggering.
Those attending regular primary schools in rural areas normally lack books, teaching aids, and are schooled in dilapidated teaching environment. Furthermore, they have teachers who are ill-prepared to teach the courses that are assigned to them to teach. Furthermore, there are no professional development opportunity for the teachers to engage in professional development. Professional development activities that will enhance proficiency in their teaching, learning methods, in the medium of instruction, and finally mastery of content.
The teaching culture also needs to change to reflect the changing student needs. It should be reasonable for student to engage in a discussion with the teacher and other students without fearing retaliations. The fact that students are scared to ask questions in class is very troublesome. Teachers are supposed to be facilitators of children’s search for knowledge. It is the duty and responsibility of each teacher to encourage children to ask questions, to guide children in their thirsty and hunger for knowledge. How are children going to learn if they do not have the opportunity to ask questions? What type of citizens are we producing? Citizens who cannot ask questions? Citizens who cannot analyze issues? I always ask myself why we entirely depend on the people who failed to teach our kids. Failures produce failures in my book.
To counteract these issues, the government needs to be at the forefront. The government needs to develop goals on how the educations system in Tanzania should look like for the short and long term. Questions like “What knowledge is of most worth to the youth? What research based-teaching strategies are best for achieving this goal? What educational management model would be best for achieving these goals? Who will pay for it? needs to asked and thoroughly explored. Without a plan, it will be impossible to measure if the education system is actually addressing the needs for the short and long terms. What a standard seven graduate needs to know and be able to do? What a form four graduate need to know and be able to do and so forth.
The Age Factor
For primary education, the age factor needs to be seriously evaluated. Standard seven graduates are indeed too young to participate meaningfully in any civil and citizenship responsibilities. For example, getting a job at the age of 13-to-15 years is almost impossible in current work-force-system in Tanzania. I certainly believe that raising the end of school age to Form Four for all will adequately help to give the youngsters of Tanzania enough time and growth physically, mentally, and academically to participate fully in their nation building work and in realizing their potentials.
How To Get There?
The money factor and the school structure needs to be discussed openly. Like I said earlier a bottom-up approach will do more good than harm. It will be a huge undertaking but it would be worth the effort. Indeed, a whole generation of talented Tanzanians is left behind with the current system. For example, I was one of those luck persons who passed standard seven alone in my school and I do not believe that I was the smartest. I have no idea where my standard seven friends are right now. It is a shame that I left a lot of them behind to fend for themselves at the age of 13-to-15 years old.
Probably knowing the life time income differential between a primary school graduate and a secondary school graduate in Tanzania will help in narrowing down the options on which way to go with our failing education system? The answer to this question will help in formulating policies that would allow for secondary school education for all youngsters in Tanzania. If indeed, secondary school graduates make substantially more income over the course of their lives, then I am for expanding those opportunities for all youngsters.
By Shaaban Fundi,
I need to loosen up at little. I have been uptight and serious the whole week. Merry-Christmas and Kwanzaa Njema To You All. Thanks to everyone and especially to those who sometimes take their precious and hard earned time to indulge themselves in reading my KiBoGoJi and leaving a comment or a suggestion behind. I greatly appreciate your contributions.
Now, to a much-much less serious issue, YAY finally, Christmas is here. I was just wondering of what would be under the tree this morning. Yes, I mean the tree in my living room. Who started this idea for a tree to be put in the living room anyway? In my narrow views, trees belong to the outside…not in my beautiful house/apartment/rental. That’s how I see it.
Back to the tree in my living room—-The one with all the different lights and making my light bill become astronomical in December. Maybe I will start using LED lights next year…or solar lights. If you have already done this transformation…let me know how did it go? How do you like your light bill? What made you go over the hump and pay that initial sum? They are all available now—the LEDs and solar lights—except for their shocking initial prices. I mean they are very expensive.
At least the regular lights provide me with a false sense of cheapness initially. I like everything cheap, if you can’t tell. Despite the fact that at the end of the month, I end up stuck with a huge light bill. Yeah, green Christmas my behind. Being environ-mentally responsible and all that.
Off to Kwanzaa——great celebrations in Atlanta. For those with the little ones, Kwanzaa events would be an ideal place to take these young minds, most Kwanzaa celebration events are either free or less than $5. There are many events for Kwanzaa in Atlanta…just type Kwanzaa in Atlanta into Google, and there you are. Expose your children to the seven principals of Kwanzaa i.e. Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani. I will bring mine when I am back in the A-town.
Being born and raised in East African (black) encountering Kwanzaa was kinda confusing at first. I have learned to accept it and celebrate it like everyone and one else despite its wackness.
How ironic, we live the whole year trying not to associate ourselves with anything African until after Christmas. Then we start talking about how we have survived, about our global village, our pan afrikanism and that saying, ”whatmacallit” It takes a village to raise a child. Am I missing something? Cause I don’t get it. LOL!!!!
Thousands raid Barrick’s North Mara mine, destroy $15 million in equipment
by Sakura Saunders
Why would “criminals” set fire to millions worth in mine equipment? How was it that these “intruders” had an estimated 3,000 people backing them up? In what appears to be a spontaneous civilian movement against Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold miner, thousands of people invaded Barrick`s North Mara Gold Mine this week in Tarime District and destroyed equipment worth $15 million. (photo of a “boma,” or series of huts, in the Nyamongo village where the Mwita family lives. credit: Allan Cedillo Lissner, SomeoneElsesTreasure.blogspot.com)
Why would “criminals” set fire to millions worth in mine equipment?
How was it that these “intruders” had an estimated 3,000 people backing them up?
In what appears to be a spontaneous civilian movement against Barrick Gold, the world’s largest gold miner, thousands of people invaded Barrick`s North Mara Gold Mine this week in Tarime District and destroyed equipment worth 15 million. According to a Barrick Public Relations officer (as reported by the Tanzanian Guardian newspaper), “the intruders stoned the security personnel relentlessly until they overpowered them. The guards abandoned their posts and retreated to safety.”
While Barrick implies that “high levels of crime” are the cause of this recent outbreak, recent reports suggest a different picture.
Allan Cedillos Lissner, a photojournalist who recently documented mine life near the North Mara mine, explains:
Ongoing conflict between the mine and local communities have created a climate of fear for those who live nearby. Since the mine opened in 2002, the Mwita family say that they live in a state of constant anxiety because they have been repeatedly harassed and intimidated by the mine’s private security forces and by government police. There have been several deadly confrontations in the area and every time there are problems at the mine, the Mwita family say their compound is the first place the police come looking. During police operations the family scatters in fear to hide in the bush, “like fugitives,” for weeks at a time waiting for the situation to calm down. They used to farm and raise livestock, “but now there are no pastures because the mine has almost taken the whole land … we have no sources of income and we are living only through God’s wishes. … We had never experienced poverty before the mine came here.” They say they would like to be relocated, but the application process has been complicated, and they feel the amount of compensation they have been offered is “candy.”
Evans Rubara, an investigative journalist from Tanzania, blames this action on angry locals from the North Mara area who are opposed to Barrick’s presence there. “This comes one week after Barrick threatened to leave the country based on claims that they weren’t making profit,” comments Evans after explaining that Barrick does not report profit to avoid taxes in the country. “This is a sign to both the government of Tanzania and the International community (especially Canada) that Poor and Marginalised people also get tired of oppression, and that they would like Barrick to leave.”
Allan also recalls hearing stories of violent confrontation against the company. “One journalist in the North Mara area told me a story about a Barrick helicopter being struck down by a group of kids who threw rocks at it.”
One thing is sure, these reports of hundreds attacking mine infrastructure – a move that allegedly took the life of one civilian – reflects a resentment that goes beyond mere criminal action. And this surge in violence should be examined in the context of the on-going exploitation and repressive environment surrounding the mine.
This is a water hole in Nyamongo that was built by Barrick Gold near their North Mara Gold mine on behalf of the local communities (the endge of the mine pit can be seen in the top left corner). But the water appears milky and dirty and the plants around the water hole are dying, but this is the only water source available to the community. photo: Allan Cedillo Lissner,
You can visit Barrick Gold locations in North America.
by Bring the struggle home!
Barrick Gold’s corporate headquarters is at:
136 E South Temple # 1300
Salt Lake City, Utah
Phone: (801) 990-3900
You can locate this and other offices and facilities by going to http://maps.google.com/ and typing “Barrick Gold” in the search box.
Comments from a contractor who worked at the North Mara Mine
I worked as a contractor there when this incident happened. shortly after dinner, i was talking with my business partner when security left the area and fled to the mine site because of a situation that was occuring. when they returned, they told us to return to our rooms, and prepare for evacuation. I was worried but prepared to leave on a moments notice not knowing what to expect. I had no beef with the natives, but after speaking with several of the barrick personell, at various times, what thet told us would make you believe it could be your last days on earth. They were not to be trusted, and after speaking with several of the contractors personell, these are africans that are not from the village, but were concerned also, about their own safety. After finding out why the villagers were so resentful, I found out the tanzanian goverrment had taken the property away from the villagers and sold it to one other company and then eventually purchased by Barrick. Barrick employed locals, but did not provide anything that I am aware of. The villagers had to walk to their local watering holes, which was a fair distance away. Barrick should have invested money to help the infrastructure of the village, and probably would not have this situation today. Giving back to the community is the best choice, in my opinion. But What barrick lost in equipment damage part of those funds could have been invested in the infrastructure of the village. I was scheduled to leave on monday 15th by mine plane, but flights were cancelled on friday 12-14-08 as I was told the airport was overrun by villagers. We ended up driving out on friday, escorted by one of our mechanics and a friend from the village for safety reasons. The comment from one of the mine supt, is “you are on your own once you leave the mine property”
which we were concerned but had to take the chance to get to wmanza. Everything work ok for us, thanks to god.
I believe either Barrick needs to make a mends or move their operations out of Tanzania, please remenber, it was the country that sold their own people out, barrick just took advantage of the situation. if I had been aware of the history behind the problems here, I may have decided not to make the trip.
By Jonathan Buck
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
LONDON (Dow Jones)–A U.K. court Tuesday ratified a plea agreement between BAE Systems PLC (BA.LN) and the Serious Fraud Office, tacitly endorsing U.S.-style plea deals for corporate wrongdoing and allowing the defense giant to draw a line under an embarrassing episode in the company’s history.
BAE Systems, which Monday pleaded guilty to a charge of improper accounting, was fined GBP500,000 and ordered to pay GBP225,000 in court costs. But the hearing wasn’t straightforward and both parties were given a night to sweat after the judge had adjourned proceedings Monday to give himself time to pore over the terms.
At London’s Southwark Crown Court Tuesday, Justice David Bean voiced his disapproval at the process, saying that “once criminal courts are involved, sentencing cannot be conducted on an artificial basis.”
Farnborough, England-based BAE Systems in February announced that it had reached settlements with the SFO and the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve long-running investigations into accounting and regulatory filings.
Under the terms of those deals, the company agreed to pay a fine of $400 million in the U.S. and to make commitments on compliance following a probe of its business dealings in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
In the U.K., it agreed to plead guilty to one charge of breach of duty to keeping accounting records in relation to payments to Shailesh Vithlani, former marketing adviser in Tanzania, and to pay GBP30 million in penalties.
Those penalties in the U.K. comprised the fine imposed by the court and the balance of the GBP30 million to be allocated to charitable payments “for the benefit of Tanzania.”
That irked Justice Bean. He said such an agreement placed “moral pressure” on the court to keep any fine to a minimum and, consequently, reparations to a maximum.
He was critical of the fact that the deal between BAE and the SFO had been “loosely and perhaps hastily drafted” and meant that no executives of the company would be prosecuted in the U.K. He noted that the U.S. Department of Justice had made no such agreement.
BAE Systems in 1998 employed Vithlani, a businessman based in Dar-es-Salaam, to act as a marketing adviser to help the company secure a contract to provide a radar defense system to Tanzania. His appointment was approved by a committee that included Michael Turner, who retired as CEO in 2008, and was approved by then-chairman Richard Evans.
The contract price for the radar system agreed in 1999 was about $40 million, and Vithlani’s fee was 31% of that amount, or roughly $12.4 billion.
Justice Bean said it was “naive in the extreme to accept that Mr. Vithlani was just a well-paid lobbyist,” and that there was “a high probability” that part of that money was “used to favor” BAE Systems.
But he added that the company may have avoided the charge of breaching its duty to keep accounting records if it had booked payments to Vithlani as “public relations and marketing services” instead of “technical services.”
In response to the verdict, the SFO made no mention of the criticism of the plea agreement. “I am delighted that the judge stressed the seriousness of BAE’s actions and that he recognized that the true victims were the people of Tanzania,” said SFO Director Richard Alderman.
However, some observers considered the punishment little more than a slap on the wrist.
“It is clear that BAE Systems has got off lightly,” said Chandrashekhar Krishnan, executive director of Transparency International U.K. “The best that can now happen is that the company demonstrates it has turned a new leaf and is irrevocably committed to clean business. We hope that it will treat this as a wake-up call and not a nod-and-wink to return to its past practices.”
The company, which employs about 107,000 workers around the world, in 2008 commissioned a committee to draft new guidelines for ethical business conduct. Those recommendations were implemented at the beginning of 2009.
“In the decade since the conduct referred to in this settlement occurred, the company has systematically enhanced its compliance policies and processes with a view to ensuring that it is as widely recognized for responsible conduct as it is for high-quality services and advanced technologies,” BAE Systems said in a statement.
It already has made provision for the penalties.
At 1615 GMT, its shares up 7 pence, or 2.1%, at 334 pence, while the benchmark FTSE 100 index traded up 0.9%. The stock has shed 2.4% in value since the start of the year largely due to concerns about defense spending as governments look to cut costs.
-By Jonathan Buck, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)207 842 9237; jonathan.buck@dowjones.com
WikiLeaks cables: Tanzania official investigating BAE ‘fears for his
life’
Prosecutor Edward Hoseah voiced safety fears over inquiry into ‘dirty
deal’ involving sale of radar system to government
By: David Leigh
Monday December 20 2010
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/19/wikileaks-cables-tanzania-bae-fears
The Tanzanian prosecutor investigating worldwide misconduct by BAE,
Britain’s biggest arms company, confided to US diplomats that “his
life may be in danger” and senior politicians in his small African
country were “untouchable”.
A leaked account [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-
documents/116436” title=”] of what the head of Tanzania’s anti-
corruption bureau, Edward Hoseah, termed the “dirty deal” by BAE to
sell Tanzania an overpriced radar system, is revealed in the US
embassy cables.
BAE is to appear in court in London tomorrow, when their system of
making secret payments to secure arms contracts, exposed by the
Guardian, will be officially detailed for the first time.
Every individual involved in the BAE scandal in Britain and Tanzania
has escaped prosecution.
But the arms giant agreed with the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to
pay ?30m in corporate reparations and fines, provided the word
“corruption” did not appear on the indictment. A corruption conviction
would debar the company from EU contracts.
The former overseas development secretary, Clare Short, said at the
time: “It was always obvious that this useless project was corrupt.”
Hoseah met a US diplomat, Purnell Delly, in Dar es Salaam in July
2007, and claimed (unrealistically it turned out) he would be able to
prosecute guilty individuals in the BAE case. The US cable reports:
“He called the deal ‘dirty’ and said it involved officials from the
Ministry of Defence and at least one or two senior level military
officers.”
Hoseah spoke gloomily about the prospects for Tanzania’s anti-
corruption struggle and his original hopes to prosecute the “big fish”
of corruption.
“He told us point blank … that cases against the prime minister or
the president were off the table …” The cable then details
allegations against former leaders and their inner circles, saying
they would be “untouchable”.
“He noted that President Kikwete does not appear comfortable letting
the law handle corruption cases which might implicate top-level
officials.” The cable then says Kwitke “does not want to set a
precedent” by going after any of his predecessors.
There were “widespread rumours of corruption within the Bank of
Tanzania”, Hoseah said, and the island region of Zanzibar was also
“rife with corruption”.
The diplomat noted: “Hoseah reiterated concern for his personal
security … saying he believed his life may be in danger … He had
received threatening text messages and letters and was reminded every
day that he was fighting the ‘rich and powerful’.”
He might have to flee the country. He warned: “He said quietly: ‘If
you attend meetings of the inner-circle, people want you to feel as if
they have put you there. If they see that you are uncompromising,
there is a risk.’ ”
The US embassy noted in a “cynical” aside, that probably the only
reason Hoseah felt obliged to attempt a BAE prosecution was because
the SFO had presented him with “a fully developed case file, brimming
with detailed evidence”.
Today’s court appearance by BAE is the culmination of lengthy attempts
to bring the company to justice since the Guardian exposed its
worldwide secret payment system.
The prime minister at the time, Tony Blair, intervened in 2006 to halt
an SFO investigation into payments to members of the Saudi royal
family.
The US department of justice has had more success than the SFO,
forcing BAE to pay $400m (?260m) in penalties under the US Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act.
?28m radar deal ‘stank’
Tanzania, on Africa’s east coast, is one of the poorest states in the
world, formerly controlled in turn by Arab slavers, German colonists
and the British.
At the time of the radar deal, life expectancy was 45.
Tanzania was forced to apply for debt relief from the west and was
heavily dependent on aid. It is ravaged by HIV/Aids and its GDP per
head is just $723 (465).
President Benjamin Mkapa, whose regime did the deal, was succeeded in
2004 by his political colleague Jakaya Kikwete.
Tanzania, which has no air force, bought the military air defence
radar from BAE in 2001 for ?28m.
It was claimed the Commander system, which was portable and festooned
with anti-jamming devices, could also be used for civilian air traffic
control.
The country borrowed the cost from Barclays, adding to its debt
burden. Both the World Bank [http://www.worldbank.org/” title=”World
Bank] and the International Civil Aviation Organisation [http://
www.icao.int/” title=”International Civil Aviation Organisation]
called the purchase unnecessary and overpriced.
In London, the then development secretary, Clare Short, temporarily
blocked aid payments in protest. “It stank,” she now says of the sale.
She urged an export licence be withheld, but was overruled by Tony
Blair himself. Robin Cook, then foreign secretary, recorded bitterly
in his diary that Dick Evans [of BAE] seemed to have “the key to the
garden door of No 10 [Downing St]”.
In January 2007 the Guardian disclosed that BAE had used an offshore
front company, Red Diamond [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/
15/bae.armstrade?INTCMP=SRCH” title=”Guardian disclosed that BAE had
used an offshore front company, Red Diamond], to secretly pay ?8.4m,
30% of the radar’s ostensible price, into a Swiss account.
The account was controlled by Tanzanian middleman Sailesh Vithlani.
His “consultancy” agreement was, it is alleged, formally signed off in
London by Evans.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010
Organ transplants using ‘risky donors’ rising
More organs from higher risk donors are being used for transplants because of a donor shortage, the BBC has learned. Organs from patients with a history of cancer or drug abuse, elderly donors and those with serious illnesses have to be considered, say surgeons. They say they face a dilemma of leaving people to die without a transplant or operating with organs from such donors.
The use of higher risk donors has doubled from 13% in 1998 to 26% last year, BBC Radio File on 4 was told.An average of three patients a day are dying in the UK because of a lack of a suitable organ for transplant.
This means surgeons are having to use organs from donors they call “marginal”, meaning they come from the following categories: the over-70s, patients with serious illnesses, patients with a history of cancer or drug abuse, or drinkers and heavy smokers.
Professor James Neuberger, medical director of NHS Blood and Transplant, which co-ordinates the supply of organs, told File on 4: “There is no doubt that if we had more donor organs… we could be a lot more selective about those that are used.”
He added: “In some cases this is completely safe for the patient but we’re certainly seeing organs from higher risk donors being used in order to meet the ever growing need for organ transplantation.”
He said in an ideal world surgeons would not use organs that carried added risks but the alternative was more deaths of patients on the transplant waiting list.
Statistics seen by File on 4 show that in 1998 13% of 787 donors were in the marginal category, but by 2008 the percentage had doubled to 26% of 899 donors.
Surgeon Simon Bramhall, who carries out liver transplants at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, said factors such as seatbelt laws and road safety improvements had reduced the number of organs available from young donors.
“I’ve taken organs from a number of donors in their 80s and transplanted them successfully,” he said.
He said “beggars can’t be choosers”, but added: “The donors are getting older, they’re getting fatter and they’re having more of what I call co-morbid disease – additional diseases like heart disease, lung disease and even kidney disease.”
One patient who was given a kidney, which turned out to be cancerous and had to be removed, told File on 4 she had been so traumatized by the experience she had refused to put her name back on the transplant waiting list.
The woman said: “I felt as though my life had been ruined. I felt destroyed, my family was destroyed… my husband has to care for me now. When I was on dialysis before I was coping, now dialysis is worse.” Dialysis patient ‘Sally’ had to have her donated kidney removed when it was found to have cancer. She is clear of the disease but is reluctant to have another transplant.
Surgeons have told File on 4 that they are carrying out transplants using organs from cancer patients, elderly people, heavy smokers, alcoholics and drug addicts due to a shortage of donors.
By Erick Kabendera
I was born and bred in a small town in rural Tanzania, and all I saw around me as I grew up was poverty. I saw a peasant who always worked hard in his small farm but could not transport his produce to the market because the roads had not been repaired since the British colonial government left in the early 1960s.
For orphans who hoped to get school uniforms, books and school fees from grassroots religious charity organisations, which paid for the education of over a thousand children in my home town, rains and impassable roads meant that even the most generous and caring of charity workers could hardly reach them.
Expectant mothers would walk for hours on end to reach the nearest health centre, where they badly needed the services of midwives and other experts. Some had no option but to give birth in the open – on the roadsides -before reaching the village dispensary.
Women sell their products along Kasulu-Kibondo highway. Their experiences show how Tanzania still has a long way to make aid work for poor people.
Those lucky enough to reach there would sometimes find the only nurse at the village health centre gone to a distant village to visit other mothers. During those few times she would be around, she seldom helped the mothers because she lacked proper training and was without the facilities needed to take a mother through safe birth.
That was more than twenty years ago, long before I could call myself an adolescent. I am now an adult – and a journalist. My work entails visiting rural families frequently to write about their lives. I stay in poor people’s homes while there, squat with them around a plate of boiled potatoes and greasy wild vegetable soup.
I would sometimes sleep in their small huts, where the air was filled with the stench of goat urine. The ruminants would bleat into my ears all night long. It is from such experiences that I have discovered the bitter truth about the little aid can do to change people’s lives.
In these particular cases, what the aid had done was to widen the gap between a poorly starving African and a beer-bellied senior civil servant entrusted with donor sponsored poverty reduction programmes.
Sometimes a ten-classroom school would be built. The cost of each classroom would officially be put at $6000 or thereabouts, but it would be built with half the amount, the balance going into the wrong people’s ever hungry pockets. A year later, when the long rains set in, the school buildings would start crumbling.
Senior civil servants overseeing the construction of a number of such schools in different parts of the country would write sweet reports for consumption by unsuspecting donors. The officials would pay themselves a daily $100 or so each per day for attending meetings to deliberate on the future of school construction plans, the meetings being conveniently held twice a week.
Those involved in the implementation of the projects would compete against each other in buying ultramodern Toyota Land Cruisers, Japanese brand fuel guzzlers that not honest civil servant in a poor nation could afford even if it meant hoarding a whole lifetime’s salary.
One of them would happily shout at a pub how he near effortlessly he would pay a staggering $30,000 the following week for his son or daughter to study at a prestigious university in London or South Africa. He would do that while juggling his Iphone in one hand and a Blackberry in the other.
The conversation would be incomplete if he forgot to brag about his plan to buy a new house in a posh neighbourhood for his newly found long-legged mistress, a mere 20 years old. “Small change” coming to a few thousand pounds would then be deposited in an offshore account somewhere in Europe or the Americas.
President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, a popular name with the West, admitted months ago that about 30 per cent of the government’s national budget got “lost” through corruption and embezzlement. He was in fact talking of an amount equivalent to the country’s annual budget support, a warning that the system in use had serious shortcomings and called for urgent review.
As the leaders of the world’s richest nations devise ways to meet their historic pledge to double aid to Africa, the must also think of coming up with comprehensive plans on how to make aid work better.
They need to help strengthen local councils and charities at the grassroots not only to a competitive wage but also to hold leaders who misuse aid to account. This could help end the embezzlement or misuse of their taxpayers’ money.
“Little Mikey D was the one in class who everyday got brutally harassed. This went on for years till he decided never again would he shed another tear. So he walked through the door, grabbed the four-four out his father’s dresser drawer, said “I can’t take life no more,” and like that life can be lost. But this aint even about that, all of us just sat back and watched it happen. Thinking’ it’s not my responsibility to solve a problem that’s not even about me. This is our problem.
This is just one of the daily scenarios in which we choose to close our eyes instead of doing the right thing. If we make the choice to be the voice for those who won’t speak up for themselves, how many lives will be changed, chances rearranged. Now it’s our time to pick a side. So don’t keep walking by not wanting to intervene because you just want to exist and never be seen. So lets wake up, change the world, our time is now.”
Teenage suicide has reached epic levels in the past few years. These voices are still waiting to be heard. Now is the time for us to take a stand. Be a hero. Offer a smile, a hug, or an encouraging word to someone you don’t know. You never know, it might save a life. Be a hero for someone today.
You can be a hero, heroes do what’s right.
You can be a hero, you might save a life.
You can be a hero, you can join the fight for what’s right.
Lydia Singleton
* paragraph in quotes was taken from the song Hero by Superchic(k)
By Shaaban Fundi,
In recent years, people like Stephen Rwembewo (Kenya) and Joseph Mchekadona (Tanzania) have been writing articles on the slow death of Kiswahili. I am not sure what prompted Mr Mchekadona to compare the gradual diminishing of the Ngoni tribal language to Kiswahili. Kiswahili is a language spoken by over 95 million people in more than five countries whereas Ngoni is estimated to be spoken by between 750,000 to 1.5 million people in a very narrow geographic area. No or very little comparison can be made based on these facts.
The truth is that Kiswahili is not dying. In fact it is among the fastest growing languages in the modern era.
If you look back to the 1970s and 1980s–Kiswahili was not widely spoken in many places including large areas of Kenya. Kiswahili was becoming a Tanzanian phenomenon and nothing more. But Kiswahili has in recent years been gaining momentum rather than losing it. Looking at how many people speak the language outside Tanzania should confirm this observation. For example, there are more Kenyans, Ugandans, Rwandans, Burundians, Congolese, Zambians, Malawians, Somalis, Comoran and Mozambicans who speak Kiswahili and are proud to do so.
The fact that Kiswahili is a blend of many languages gives it appeal among the many ethnic groups in East Africa and beyond. The intermarriages that are apparently hastening the demise of languages such as Ngoni seem to have the opposite effect on Kiswahili. These facts are actually fueling the spread of Kiswahili across Tanzania and the region in general.
East African integration will in my view push more people to learn Kiswahili if they are to readily access a market of more than 95 million people who already speak various dialects of the language.
One may argue that Kiswahili is changing but so do other and languages, but that does not mean that these languages are heading towards extinction. A culture that is not dynamic is more prone to losing its identity than one that is changing and embracing the dynamics of change.
There are many people who feel that new phenomena such as Bongo-Flava will have a negative effect on the growth of Kiswahili. However, the opposite is true. Bongo -Flava has actually increased the appeal of Kiswahili among the youth in Kenya, Uganda, Congo and other countries.
Young people in these countries are actually finding Kiswahili to be cool again and spend a lot of time learning it to understand the rhymes in the music.
Off course, efforts are needed to promote the use of a well structured and grammatically correct Kiswahili all over East Africa and beyond.
But for now, Sheng and Kigwana dialects in Kenya and the Congo respectively are good Kiswahili in my views. These Kiswahili dialects help people to communicate. Moreover, I don’t see the need for Sheng to be called a different language altogether as Mr Stephen Rwembewo seems to suggest. Sheng has its origins in Kiswahili. All English variations are English be it South African, Australian, American or Jamaican.
By Shaaban Fundi,
I deeply regret the loss of lives and the senseless injuries caused by the bombings in Kampala. I wish the injured a speedy recovery and the dead mercy from the creator. And to the relatives of the victims, time will heal the wounds and sorrows. The killing of innocent people should be forcefully condemned.
What should Uganda do now? The issue of dealing with al Shabaab should not be left to Uganda alone. If they can bomb Kampala, then they are indeed capable of bombing Nairobi, Dar es Salaam or Kigali at any time in the future. It should be a collective gesture by the East African Community to show al Shabaab that East Africa is fed up with this barbaric and nonsense killings of innocents.
Somalis terrorists have now become a regional nuisance that needs to be dealt with decisively. Forces should be combined (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda etc) to uproot them from their bases in Mogadishu and wherever they might be hiding in the countryside. Their acts and existence are destabilising the region and hindering further investment in East Africa from outside investors.
As East Africans are trying to build an integrated East Africa, we can’t lose sight of the problem of piracy, terrorism and refugees streaming from Somaliland. It is in the interest of East African nations to deal with this problem now, once and for all. These resolutions after resolutions by the AU of sending peacekeepers to keep nonexistent peace in Somalia should end.
We East Africans actually need to go into Somali, create peace by disarming all the fighting factions and then keep the peace until Somalis are ready to lead their own county.
We have been watching Somalis kill each other for far too long, over 20 years in fact. The fact of the matter is they seem incapable of figuring out solutions to their problems. It is now time for neighbours to intervene. We are not going to intervene just because it is morally right, but because we will also be preventing future attacks.
If Tanzania, with the support of Ugandans, was able to uprooted the ruthless regime of Idi Amin Dada, three countries or more in the East African bloc should be able to do the same in Somalia with the help of moderate Somalis.
This is our problem and we need to deal with it as East Africans. America and the West will not be fully engaged in this as their interventions around the world usually involve the presence of oil or minerals resource in the country in question, and Somalia has neither.
As the AU head of states gather in Kampala from July 25, this issue needs to be at the top of the summit’s agenda. The Somalia problem cannot be left to take its own cause any longer and needs to be dealt with forcefully and conclusively.
By Shaaban Fundi,
The dismal performance of Tanzanian students in science and mathematics from primary to secondary schools is not surprising.
The last time I was in Tanzania I had the opportunity to visit a couple of primary and secondary schools both in urban and rural areas and what I observed in the mathematics and science classroom was very appalling. Dilapidated learning environment, lack of basic teaching resources, and didactic teaching methods were ubiquitous .On top of all this, the teachers I visited demonstrated lack of teaching skills, firm content understanding in the subject area they were teaching, and the also lacked rigorous professional development needed to perform proficiently in their jobs.
I know I should not generalize what I saw in those few schools to be a good representation of what is going on in the entire country. Data from the Ministry of education suggests this to be the case. The percent failure rates in mathematics, biology, physics and chemistry were at 77, 43, 35, 45 in the year 2003 and 78, 45, 35, 43 percents in the year 2004 respectively. Since no concrete corrective measures are in place to address the downward trends, I believe the failure rates in these subjects are worse now than they were before and will continue to worsen in the foreseeable future.
What Tanzania need to do?
I am optimistic that the situation is not beyond despair even though it is pathetic. We still have the time to change what is happening in our schools and educate our children to compete in the now increasingly flatter world. A four prongs approach can be used to address this problem.
First, building a conducive learning environment for our youngsters is vital in reversing this trend. The fact that most school children have no classrooms, desks, chairs and school supplies is a shame to all of us who wish well the next generation of Tanzanians. The government has the responsibility to collect taxes, cut spending, and to provide services to its citizens. One of those services is to provide a quality education to its people. We are purposely leaving our children behind in the East African Community and the global markets. 
How are they going to compete with our neighbors and the global community if we are failing them miserably in education?
Second, teaching our teachers especially those in primary and secondary schools to use pedagogically engaging and developmentally appropriate lessons. To develop Lessons geared to address the different learning modalities i.e. auditory, tactile, kinesthetic etc and needs of all children. This can be achieved by preparing teachers that have a firm understanding for their content areas, brain developmental theories, and how to develop instructional methods that help children learn at their own pace and age group.
Teachings from the chalkboard and memorization methods are not very engaging for most, if not all children. Therefore, teachers need to be taught to use differentiation teaching strategies such as the use of hands on activities, manipulative, experiential learning, grouping strategies and the use of models in explaining abstract scientific and mathematical concepts to young children.
In addition, teaching at the highest levels of the bloom’s taxonomy is essential.Furthermore, it would be helpful to start teaching science and mathematics in English from a tender age i.e. primary schools onwards. This will not only help to improve science and mathematics performance but also will increase English acquisition and proficiency at an early age. Moreover, students who are performing poorly in these subjects should be identified early and remedial instruction should be provided to help them master the content.
Third, providing science and mathematics teachers with the resources they need to teach these subjects effectively. The presence of basic teaching tools like models i.e. the globe, DNA models, Bohr’s models etcetera in the classrooms are crucial at helping kids learn science and mathematics. Moreover, incentives to attract and retain knowledgeable people to become and stay in the teaching profession will go a long way in helping to alleviate this problem.
Fourth, continued monitoring and evaluation of teachers and administrators performances in these schools is a key. We need to make sure first that these people have the resources and training they need to do their jobs successfully. And not just blaming them empty handedly. The auditing that is currently done through a checklist is not producing the result that is needed. Maybe an auditing system that rewards the schools, the teachers and the administrators that are performing beyond their calls of duty and punish those who do not, needs to be developed and effectively implemented.
I hope people in the ministry of education will see the need and start acting immediately before importing teachers from Kenya and Uganda to teach these subjects for us. I do believe that we do still have the talent pool to draw upon within Tanzania before importing teachers from abroad.
However, I do recommend the pairing of Tanzanian teacher with the peace-corps and other volunteer teachers as a means of exposing our teachers to the best practices in teaching mathematics and science.
Dr. Shaaban Fundi
Will Uranium Mining Be a Natural Resource or Curse to Tanzania?
Tanzania will soon be joining African countries like Namibia, Niger, and Malawi as uranium exporters if proposed uranium mining projects are approved by the government. Short term benefits of uranium mining include job opportunities for thousands of Tanzanians and tax income for the Tanzanian government. These benefits cannot be ignored. However, the long-term health and environmental consequences associated with uranium and all other mining activities also need to be seriously evaluated.
One important environmental consequence of uranium mining is that the process uses enormous amounts of water. A recent estimate by a mining company in Namibia, Canadian Forsys Metal Company, suggested that its mining operation utilizes 1 million liters of water per day. One of the proposed areas for Uranium mining in Tanzania is in Manyoni District in Singida region. Water is already a scarce commodity in this region and it would be very unwise to let one company consume so much water at the expense of current inhabitants.
In addition to using enormous amount of water, uranium mining relies on open-pit operations which leave huge craters once mining activities have ceased. The soils in the remaining craters are usually contaminated with radioactive materials and therefore the soil become useless for many years in the future.Furthermore, radioactive dust particles can travel by wind to larger areas and affect the health of communities surrounding the mining areas. It has been documented that exposure to even relatively low levels of radiation over a long period of time can be extremely harmful to the health of workers and communities living around uranium mines. What plans are currently in place to ensure that the workers and people already living in these areas are protected and will be taken care of if this radioactive contamination should occur?
Current estimates suggest that Tanzania has about 53.9 million pounds of uranium oxide deposits and at the current price of $41 per pound, these deposits are worth an estimated $2.2 billion. Despite the estimated large sum of dollars, Tanzania has no control over uranium pricing variability on the world market. Demand and supply does. Yet very few countries can actually use uranium for energy generation and bomb creation due to its high cost of operation, need for skilled personnel, and international restrictions on development of nuclear programs. If global demand for uranium were to decrease, the estimated value of these deposits would also decrease. Thus, it is unclear how much revenue uranium mining would really bring to Tanzania.
Furthermore, the Tanzania Mining Act of 1998 gives a disproportionate amount of revenue benefits to mining companies. This has meant that the average Tanzanian citizen has seen limited benefit from current mining projects while the vast majority of profits go to mining companies based in other countries. Take gold, for example. Tanzania is the fourth largest producer of gold in sub-Saharan Africa behind Ghana and South Africa. Yet Tanzanians have failed to benefit from the gold mining ventures in the country. What assurances do Tanzanians have that it will be different for the proposed uranium mining ventures? Given the serious environmental and health impact associated with uranium mining, Tanzania needs a Mining Act that will address the health and environmental concern of its citizens and that will ensure local communities also profit from mining activities. Without a comprehensive legislative framework to deal with all the implications of uranium mining, Tanzania opens itself up to abuse by companies who pursue an agenda of short-term profits and pay very little attention to the long-term health and environmental consequences for the host country and its citizens. Tanzania needs to develop a legislative framework and monitoring program to ensure these companies will protect the welfare of their workers and the environment before allowing mining to start. These tasks require a high level of technical competence and strong political will.
The decision whether or not to proceed with uranium mining in Tanzania should be discussed thoroughly with all stakeholders including the mining companies, the government and the local people residing in the proposed mining areas and in the transit routes. The locals should be told about the potential benefits and consequence of the proposed mining including the increased risk for developing cancer associated with living or working in uranium mining areas. Who will be responsible for their health once they start to develop cancer related illnesses? The water issues also need to be looked at carefully. How can the community and the uranium mines share the water resources so that there is enough water for everyone? How can the community share in the revenue generated by the uranium mines? And finally, who will be responsible to remediate the contaminated soils in the crater that will remain after mining operation ceases? These issues need to be decided before the Tanzanian government approves uranium mining in the country.
The fact that I am a Tanzanian at heart is something that I value immensely. I do feel that we Tanzanians have been blessed with the openness to discuss contentious issues pertaining to our personal and nation existence with little to no violence. This type of tolerance does not exist in a lot of our neighboring friends and their countries. It is with this openness and tolerance; I would like to discuss the emerging middle class issue that is currently not openly discussed by many of us young Tanzanians.
Many of young people and some of the well to do old folks think that we are where we are in our careers because of hard work only. Often times we forget to think that the people our parents or relatives knew and/or know and some that we don’t know at all have something to do with it in some ways.
You may ask: What about the sleepless nights from secondary schools through college, does all that not count? Well, they actually do. But so do the hard work and back-breaking work the peasants and most of the poor in our society are doing everyday and getting mostly nothing tangible from their labor.
I have had a flashback recently about the words of wisdom by Baba wa Taifa that used to be ubiquitously displayed in most secondary school dining halls across the country in the 70s and 80s. The words went like “Those who received this privilege have a duty to repay the sacrifice others have made for them. They are like a man or a woman from a remote village……..and it goes on and on to end with …they are betraying our nation” … Do you remember it??.
It is not a coincidence that the political families and the civil servants families are where they are today and the rest are nobody. If you know anything about the theories of social networking you will agree with me. The so-called middle class we are in is hugely a product of our connections as it is of our hard work. Don’t get me wrong, we do need a middle class, a middle class based on the content of our character rather than based on the people we know. The relatively privileged groups who are increasingly seeing themselves and are seen by others as the driver of change whatever that change maybe are not going to exclusively change the status quo of poverty in Tanzania.
We as Tanzanians need to seriously think about evening out the playing field such that a peasant and his/her children can be able to compete with people in the elite and civil servants groups, like it used to be. The peasant group work sunrise to sunset, hard and back-breaking work every day with no vacations, no week ends and very little return from their labor. The fact that they are not represented at the decision table makes it harder for their grievances to be heard and adequately addressed. We make decisions for them without a thorough understanding of their problems and needs. We need their representation at the decision table to create solutions to their unique set of problems. As our policies toward their problems seem to be detached and/or not care enough about their plights any longer.
Kilimo Kwanza is a step in the right direction. We need to embrace policies like Kilimo Kwanza i.e. having Bwana Shambas in the villages, tractor lending stations, and subsidized agricultural inputs to help our peasants’ population produce enough to feed themselves and to generate income. To provide quality education for all children so that they will be able to progressively change their status quo and competently compete with the elite children who go to private/international schools and to colleges abroad. To create equitable systems for buying agricultural produce at competitive prices. Prices that reflect the actual cost of producing the products and that leave the farmers with a profit to invest in farm inputs for the following years. Maybe we can go even further to allow for policies that will facilitate the long-awaited needs for Wakulima to have title deeds to their land and use it to borrow capital to advance agriculture in Tanzania.
These are the right policies in my humble opinion that we need to embrace and put forth to address the fundamental issues of inequity in our society. Inequalities in education, health care, income, power, water na mengine mengi.
The middle class that is currently being promoted and reproducing itself everywhere is entirely based on who knows who and in my views will not uplift the nation and our ‘poor’ people but rather it will uplift itself narrowly and exclusively.
My worries are that many people in the middle class we have today have forgotten those words of wisdom by Mwalimu Nyerere and feels as though they don’t owe anybody for their successes and fortunes. This in itself is entirely not true, because most if not all of us went to school on the shoulders of the Tanzanians peasants agricultural exports based market economy. As the gap between the haves and have not continue to increase, I am afraid the poor in our society will no longer remain silent as they have been for the past 49 empty promise filled years. The shangingis ”that you feel like you earned by your hard work and Ujasilimali” will be nothing when they finally come asking for a piece of their long-awaited nation’s pie.
www.kibogoji.com 
