Zanzibar Educational Challenges

Many things have been said about the quality of Zanzibar education. Of course the recent cheating scandal exposed by the National Examination Council of Tanzania is the most alarming. Thousands of students including entire schools results have been disqualified for cheating. Concerning the ways of improving I have been thinking that it is important to understand the current problems or let’s say challenges facing education in Zanzibar.

In this April I visited one school and talked to the school head. He told me that he has a large group of form one students who can neither read nor write. He said that they are plan to establish a special class for them. Embarrassing, but who is responsible for this? Do the teachers failed to teach because of idle content knowledge? Or because of poor teaching techniques? It may be; is the result of teachers’ shortage or large classrooms. We have to find the correct answer, of course.

For a long time Zanzibar students had no text books. Recently, the Government of Zanzibar has succeeded to provide text books to nearly every student in all subjects. Despite of the fact, one volunteer teacher from Dar es Salaam claimed that it seems Zanzibar students have no text books. I was very astonished as I know that each student has got almost all textbooks. I have discovered that most teachers and students in Zanzibar do not use the textbooks. Some of the teachers claim that the books are shallow. Is that enough reason for the abandonment of the books? I know that when I returned form my studies I saw many textbooks of my kids in my cupboard and still are there. I have noticed that many secondary students do not take the books from the school store at all. I wonder if the teachers use the textbooks or even if they do; do they know how to use them properly? And what is the best way of using them? This is my first area of interest.

Most of the teachers use ‘notes translation’ method. The teachers write notes on the board then read and translate them. When the reading is completed, the teaching is over – the end of the lesson. I have never used this technique accept when I go to the classroom and see a lot of notes on the chalk board which I can not rub. I believe this is not a good method of teaching. It does not develop learners thinking and therefore undermines their minds capacity. How ever I believe this is one of the methods which suits with our environments. We use English as the medium of instruction but even the teachers’ English competence or performance is poor. Perhaps all methods suggested for using in the classrooms are not ideal for second language users with poor language performance. In my opinion, ‘notes translation’ must be accepted as a proper teaching method but studies must be made to find ways of improving it. For example, Teaches must not use the whole chalk board for notes; there must be place for demonstrations and students activities.

Never the less the most fatal problem is the fact that teachers give very few exercises to the students. The methods we use, the time limitation, heavy teaching load, crowdy classrooms and poor preparation have killed the teaching culture of asking students questions at the end of the lesson. Even the tasks assigned to the students sometimes are not challenging enough to prepare the students for the national examinations.

My friend Said (AKU cohort 2010) commented that mow in Zanzibar teaching has been privatized. Every one acts by his own.