By  Salome Gregory, Success Reporter
Juma Abdala joined Form One at Tabata Secondary School in high spirits. The young boy had looked forward to a bright start to secondary school, but his mood has since been dampened by his failure to understand what the teachers say in English, three weeks after schools opened.

It is a difficult, “sudden” transition for him and thousands of Form One students beginning secondary education from public schools, where they did all subjects in Kiswahili.

“At my school there are posters almost everywhere reminding us to use English all the time. The teachers punish us if we are caught communicating in Kiswahili,” Juma says.

Some posters are written, ‘No English, no service’. While the teachers often turn a deaf ear to new students failing to use English, the situation at Juma’s school presents one of the major challenges pupils from public schools face on joining secondary school.

Difficult to communicate
They spend seven years of primary  education using Kiswahili in all subjects, only to suddenly switch to English for all the subjects.

“I am finding it very difficult to communicate in English and in class I cannot learn much unless the teachers first say a concept in English and then explain using Kiswahili,” says Juma.

From understanding concepts and pronunciation of words to spellings and definitions, challenges the transition to English as a medium of communication brings about are many.

A random survey by Success in Dar es Salaam public secondary schools last week revealed that many pupils struggle to communicate properly in English.

“It is not unusual in the first year for students from public schools to struggle to cope with the challenge of using English, but some of them will learn fast enough,” says Ms Sara John, a teacher at Atlas Secondary School.

She expresses concern at the slow pace of learning English by most students, which she blames on the fact that a lot of people are yet to accept English as an important language to master at an early age.

According to a late last year’s annual learning assessment report by Uwezo: ‘Are our children learning?’, on average, nine out of 10 Standard Seven pupils in Tanzania’s rural areas cannot read a simple story written in English.

These are some of the students who find it very difficult to adjust to secondary school life, where English is supposed to be a medium of teaching and communication.

“Most of the students have been using Kiswahili all their lives since they were born. So, expecting them to perform wonders in their first year of secondary education is too much,” says the teacher.

Reason for poor results
English has often been cited as one of the major reasons for the poor performance by students at Form Four level.
Many students find it so hard to learn the language from Form One that they give up. This not only affects their performance at O-level, but also A-level and sometimes up to university.

But Dr Leonard Akwilapo, the director of the Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE), believes the problem of poor performance is bigger than English.

“Blaming it on English perse is missing the point because there are bigger problems causing mass failures in our schools than English,” he says.

“Of course English presents a challenge, but that’s just a little. If it were so, how come pupils are performing below expectations in the Standard Seven national examinations when they are using Kiswahili at primary level?” he queries.

Instead, he blames the students’ failure to understand in class on “unqualified teachers”. He says: “The transition has nothing to do with poor performance, I have serious problems with the kind of teachers we have in our schools.”

But the government doesn’t seem to see it that way. Last week, Education and Vocational Training deputy minister Phillipo Mulugo took a swipe at Form One and Two students’ laxity, which he says reflects in poor results at O-level.

He said the ministry had resolved to re-introduce Form Two national exams in a bid to ensure that only students who do well at juniour secondary school proceed to O-level. The failures will be forced to repeat.

“We don’t want to allow non-performing students to just proceed for the sake of it. It is not necessary for everyone to go to secondary education. They can opt for vocational training courses,” the minister was quoted as saying the media.

The reintroduction, welcomed by education stakeholders from various quarters, might serve as an incentive for learning English more seriously for students like Joanitha Isdore, who has just joined Form One at Tusiime Secondary School.

“It has been a difficult start for me since three weeks ago because using English to communicate in and outside the classroom is something that I am not used,” she said in an interview with Success.

She says her colleagues coming from private schools where English is the medium of teaching seems to be learning and adjusting faster to the new environment than those who were in public primary schools.
In a bid to make transition smooth, some teachers are using both English and Kiswahili to teach.

“What we are doing is to try and make the transition as stress-free as possible for the students because there is a danger in frustrating them as well,” says Aloyce Eliakim, a teacher at Tabata Secondary School.

However, he quickly points out that some students who are keen on learning new things do not find the transition hard because they take English as any other new concept they have to learn at secondary school.

Over the years there have been numerous interventions to raise literacy achievement rates at especially Form Four. However, impressive pass rates have been elusive as a significant number of students continue to underperform.

Among the factors Haki Elimu, an education advocacy group, attribute to poor student performance in public schools is the use of English language. Haki Elimu believes that the problem affects both teachers and students.

In a television advert to highlight the extent of the problem, the NGO portrays a secondary school teacher asking his class to explain global warming. The teacher orders a student who tries to explain the concept in Kiswahili to use English.

After struggling to say a sentence, the teacher, apparently frustrated, gives up and allows the student to use Kiswahili. The student practically sings the correct answer.

While it might be an acted episode, the TV advert dramatises the actual dilemma on the use of English as a medium of communication in Tanzanian schools.

At various forums, several politicians have attempted to play down the urgent need to introduce English as a medium of communication at an early stage. They argue that it is not necessary since it will be used later.

But experts have warned that due to globalisation and the East Africa Community (EAC) integration, lack of competence in English will leave many young Tanzanian disadvantaged in the job market.
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