BUILDING SCHOOLS IN TANZANIA
When a school is started, it
apparently starts with standard I; the next year has standards I &
II, and so on. Although there are seven standards, the numbers at
Namanga, Njia Panda, Bashay and Nyoka, Sinya has only six and Ilkiurei
has only four, indicating that the first four have been in operation
more than seven years, whereas the latter two have been operating only
six and four years, respectively. There is a real classroom
crunch at the newer schools, although we saw construction at two of the
established schools.
Classrooms appear to be added two
at a time. In rural areas with ample space this usually means
whole new buildings with two or three rooms. The third may be a
smaller room for the school office, a library or teachers' preparation
area. We were told that the process for getting new rooms goes
something like this: Parents have to get the foundation and walls
built; thereafter the national government will add a roof and provide a
teacher. This leads to great local "buy in" for the growing
schools. Exactly what is meant by "parents" is unclear. It
may mean local resources of whatever source. Local officials
obviously very interested in the schools and our presence at Namanga
and Sinya. Some building is funded by outside agencies. For
example World Vision, an
international Christian benevolent organization, funded some of the
building of dormitories at Sinya Primary School. Many other
organizations have funded other parts of the facilities.
A building with a
foundation, walls, a roof and a teacher is far from complete! It
has no floor and lacks even desks! The walls may have only holes
for windows, or in older rooms, window holes may have been bricked
in.
The building bricks at Namanga
and Sinya
were solid cement blocks, perhaps 12" x 8" x 4". The same-sized
bricks around Karatu were made from a local red clay and fired only at
low temperatures, leading to very weak bricks. (We drove past
several places where bricks were being made. They appeared to be
fired in a pile of charcoal, rather than in a kiln, the reason for the
low temperature firing.) Good construction practices cover the
bricks with a stucco or plaster, both inside and outside. The new
building at Nyoka
was well plastered; we saw the final stages of the plastering in
one of the new rooms. The other classroom
and teachers' work area had been completed so recently that they were
covered with wet paint! At Sinya, one of the classrooms we
visited was only partly plastered; money or plaster apparently ran
out!
Sinya had two roofed
classrooms but their dirt floor hadn't even been leveled out
yet! Njia
Panda had two roofed buildings containing four classrooms which
were not yet in use.
Slide Show
Illustrating the Above Comments