Tanzania: Our form one students read and write at nursery level – teacher

Butiama — Public secondary schools in Butiama not only struggle to cope with crowded classrooms forcing them to turn libraries and laboratories into classrooms; they are also battling with huge numbers of Form One students who can’t read or write.

At Kemoramba Secondary School in Butiama District, teachers say that some of the students who joined the school early this year were typical candidates for nursery school.

Mr Mayala Joseph, the school’s deputy headmaster said it was now an extra burden on the teachers: «We have been forced to teach them what they were supposed to learn at nursery school.»

This, according to the deputy head is a tricky affair because teaching preschool requires a combination of experience and certain special skills that secondary school teachers often do not possess.

The teachers are caught between rock and hard place. «We don’t have mandate to send the students back home because they have been selected to join our school, despite the fact that they can’t write and read,» the frustrated deputy headmaster explained.