Why Mbeya struggles to attain education target

 “What is the product of three times three,” Mr Ezron Kyejo asks one of his standard four pupils at Madaraka Primary School in Rungwe district, Mbeya during Mathematics lesson at around 12:30pm The pupil remains mum.

At that time, pupils were not concentrating. They were visibly tired and weak because they had not eaten anything since morning.

But the school’s timetable shows that, regardless of the distance, pupils were supposed to be at their respective homes for a lunch before resuming their studies at 2pm Mr Kyejo delayed to release them.

After noticing the situation, he had to release his pupils to break for lunch. Some went but others remained in the school compounds until 2pm to join with their counterparts from other classes who found it difficult to go home for lunch.

Samuel Festo, a Standard Seven pupil is among those who didn’t go home for lunch. He said “our home is very far from here so I can’t manage to go and return to resume classes.”

If Festo had gone home, he could get food but for others the situation is different.

“Even if I go home, what would I get there? Nothing. It is better to stay here until evening,” says Isaya Peter another pupil.

Not all pupils who go home for lunch find the food on the table. Some have to prepare food for themselves despite having short time.

Yuster Oden, another pupil says some of those who manage to arrive home early because of the short distance are forced to cook, if they can, because their parents are either in the farms or in the town centres trading.

Lack of school feeding programme at Madaraka and other schools in Mbeya are affecting region’s objective to attain 80 per cent of pass rate.

“Pupils do not learn when they are hungry.” The situation is the same in other regions in the country where there is no such programmes.

“When we allow these pupils to go home to eat, according to school timetable, and return to school before 2pm, most of them find it difficult and when classes resume, their brains are not ready to absorb anything,” says Mr Kyejo who has been teaching for 28 years.

Madaraka was the sixth school in the district in the last year’s Primary School Leaving Examination with an average of B, thanks to the teachers’ efforts of teaching even during extra hours for classes preparing for national exams. Nationwide the school was 1,769th out of 8,109 with pupils above 40.

Teachers in the school are of the opinion that if there was the feeding programme at Madaraka, pupils could have done better like their counterparts from Nuru Primary School in Tukuyu town who drink enriched porridge at 10am and lunch time.

Christabela Mwanjale, a History and English teacher at Madaraka Primary School says apart from poor performance of pupils because of hunger, they develop “unacceptable behaviours like stealing money from their parents to buy snacks while at school.”

Ms Mwanjale says some pupils are walking about two to three kilometres to school hence they get tired when they are forced to go home for lunch adding “the problem get worse during the rainy seasons because they can’t go home and return to school.”

While Madaraka Primary School teachers and pupils are narrating the challenges difficulties they are sailing through due to the absence of school food programme, the story is different at another government owned school, Nuru English Medium School.

At Nuru, pupils eat variety of foods on Friday according to the school timetable.

The school’s programme shows that at 10:00am, pupils drink porridge enriched with sugar and milk whereby those of kindergarten are given priority to start eating before the rest because of their young age, thanks for school fees paid by parents.

Nuru is among of the 11 public primary schools that the government allowed to continue charging fees.

The school head teacher, Herbert Mwambipile, says “the amount collected is being used for administrative costs and providing food including porridge, meat, vegetables and rice.” Hellen Nguto, a standard four pupil at the school says after drinking porridge and eating lunch, they “regain energy” and “listen to teachers carefully.”

The head teacher says the “secret behind of 100 per cent pass rate in 2016 PSLE is porridge and lunch at school plus hardworking teachers. Schools with feeding programme minimises chances of absenteeism.”

Apart from that success, Nuru topped other public primary schools in both Rungwe district and Mbeya region and for the school with candidates below 40 in the country, it ranked at 302 out of 8,241.

No food in Mbeya schools

According to Mbeya region education office, only 32 primary schools are providing food to the pupils of which majority are in Mbarali district.

According to the open data portal in the dataset dubbed “pupil teacher rations in government primary schools 2016” by March last year, Mbeya had 756 public primary schools.

District officials and teachers, who asked for anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to the press, says the sharp decline in number of public primary schools in providing food started immediately after the introduction of free education from primary to the secondary level.

With that policy, according to the teachers, “people misunderstood the concept and forgot their responsibilities to their children.”

In most schools, parents contribute food when there are special occasions including national examinations and vaccinations under coordination of Ministry of Health Tanzania Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children.

“Most of our schools are not providing food because parents are not contributing. They do that when pupils are in examination or must eat before taking vaccination tablets,” says Mama Hadija, a local food vendor who declined to provide her other names.

She admits children are suffering because of hunger and might fail to perform well. She says since the introduction of free education, parents don’t trust teachers when asked to contribute for food thinking that teachers will swindle the funds.

Paying the price?

Mbeya is struggling to attain performance of PSLE results by 80 per cent, which is a national target. The region has failed to achieve this objectives for three years consecutively.

“In 2014, the national target was 70 per cent but the region (Mbeya) achieved only 48.8 per cent.

“In 2015 the national target was 80 per cent but the region attained 57.09 per cent and last year; Mbeya attained 60.73 below the national target,” the 2016 Regional Consultative Committee (RCC) report reads in part.

Though the RCC report does not indicate the reason for the slumping of Mbeya education standard is as a result of lack of feeding programme, Nuru Primary School teacher Brown Kisinga says; “local authorities should raise awareness about the relationship between food and poor performance.”

“Yes, the region has food, the issue is to mobilize parents to contribute food for their children if they want children to perform well in PSLE,” the science teacher adds.

Living example

The grievances of pupils who are walking six kilometres from home to school touched Mr Eric Ngeliama, the Madibira councillor in Mbarali District, Mbeya.

The situation was even worse when they are studying on empty stomachs “because some families don’t even prepare breakfast for the children,” the councillor says.

The politician was concerned about the poor education performance in his ward.

He says parents are claiming that “they were not supposed to pay anything simply because the government announced the provision of free education.”

According to Mr Ngeliama, awareness on importance of school feed ing programme including reducing absenteeism and school performance should be raised. He says they are already in touch with the authorities regarding the same.

“The plan worked out and we presented the minutes at the district and regional level for the approval. Now, all public primary schools in Madibira ward have the school feeding programme, which Mbarali District Council wants to replicate to other wards.

Mahango-Madibira Primary School is one of the beneficiaries of the school feeding programme. The former headteacher, Mr Samwel Namwewera admits the school is improving despite having nine teachers who are teaching 1,046 pupils.

Last year, according to Mr Namwewera, Mahango-Madibira was ranked eighth out of 112 schools from 50th position in the previous year in Standard Four examination.

With a deficit of 33 teachers, the school also moved to 24th position out of 108 primary schools that participated in Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) conducted in 2016.

To bring the sense of transparency and accountability, both the councillor and the head teacher say, the school food committees are run by the parents and school just play coordination role to avoid “blaming teachers for misusing money for food.”

It has worked out, according to authorities, because parents have a trust in the committee and are willing to contribute food.

However, Mbarali District executive Director Kivuma Msangi admits that they have learnt that one of the causes of district’s poor performance in PSLE last year is lack of school feeding programme.

He says the council, which is among the largest rice producers in the country, is planning to replicate Madibira success to the other wards.

“Meetings over the issue are underway especially on how to get citizens being involved by contributing for the school feeding programme,” he says.

Last year, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa admitted that there were challenges in implementing a free education policy including provision of food in schools.

“The government is still working on those challenges including raising awareness in society and involving all the stakeholders,” he said.