Our recent work in Tanzania has been the building of an education complex at Njia Panda which is a growing suburb of Moshi town to the west, and Himo town to the east. Our buildings are on a plot which is three minutes away from the main road, and our turning now has its own designated bus stop.

We built a three-storey main building which has been added to with further classrooms, kitchen space, dining space, lavatories and store rooms. The buildings are now used for pre-primary and primary education. 

Bright School started in the buildings in 2019 and now it is a thriving school with over 400 pupils ranging from two years of pre-primary to the seven years of primary education. The school is a private school which means that it is freed from some of the limitations of the government system. The director of Bright School, Loveland Makundi, set up the school with the aim of helping financially disadvantaged children. He has set the school fees at a very reasonable level so that single mothers and grandparents left to bring up grandchildren can afford to send their young children there. 

As with all private schools in Tanzania it is an English-medium school. Parents are desperate for their children to learn English and so perceive full English-medium to be the best method.

At Education East Africa we are working with Loveland and his teachers to help improve the standard of learning. There is a government syllabus for English-medium schools, and at Education East Africa we are concerned by the lack of emphasis on Kiswahili, the mother tongue, for the development of thinking skills and cultural awareness. Alongside that, the teachers are not wholly fluent in English and it is important that young learners learn correct English from the beginning. We are, therefore, introducing our Jiandae and NOEC books for the teachers to use.