Life changing decision to drop out of school

        In 2001, Helen Musa dropped out of school at the age of 16 in form two. Raised by a single parent, Helen faced difficulties in her efforts to get education.

She never saw her father as he died when she was two. Her mother was a food vendor, struggled to make a living and earn money for her only daughter’s education.

Helen narrates to Success how she was struggling to balance between her traditional family role of helping her only parent and her schooling.

“I had to wake up at 3 am to help my mother with her chores as she was supposed to open her business at 6 am. Afterwards, I prepare for school. It was very demanding ,” she says.

Helen, who now manages and runs Helen’s Classic Boutique, located at Manzese, Dar es Salaam, adds that she had to quit school to get more time to help her mother.

She poses that she loved school but her mother was her primary concern.

The school dropout-turned-entrepreneur explains that it was very difficult to do two things which both demanded her full participation, dedication and commitment.

This story is not just Helen’s. It is the story about experiences of many Tanzanians who decided to either temporarily or permanently stop going to school to persue other things.

Many of these people drop-out in order to do other things.

As for Helen, her mother never failed to pay her school fees.

She’s says that what drove her out of school is the hardship she saw her mother going through to meet their needs. “That my education was a burden to my mother to expand her business as I demanded many things as far as my schooling was concerned,” she says.

In September this year, The Citizen reported about the study by Mr Abdallah Ngodu titled Alarming drop-out rate: A threat of Internal Efficiency in Tanzania Primary Education.

Among other things that the study found out is that the number of children who have been enrolled for Standard One has increased to 1.3 million with the advent of free education.

However, the number of pupils dropping out of school has been increasing.

“Pupils don’t just quit school because they don’t have money to pay fees,’’ a secondary teacher of one of the schools in Dar es Salaam who preferred anonymity since he is not authorised to speak on behalf of the school commented adding that, “there are other cross-cutting issues, including poor living conditions, which push students to quit education.”

This assertion is also backed by Ms Sikuzani Othumani, a mother of three who is a petty trader at Buguruni market.

Ms Othumani says that apart from fees, a parent is supposed to incur other costs for children’s education.

These includes daily bus fare, uniforms, learning materials like books, pens, and the likes plus a little pocket money.

This is in line with deliberations made by Tanzania Government towards parents and guardians over their roles in their children’s education.

In the implementation of government’s will to provide free basic education, the Ministry of Education, Science and Vocational Trainings released Education Paper No. 3 earlier this year aiming at providing a framework in the implementation of free basic education.

It outlines the roles of various stakeholders in the provision of the free basic education, these include parents and guardians. They are required to buy their children’s uniforms, learning materials, food and cover their medical costs.

“In fact, these ‘other’ costs that parents incur to fulfil these needs surpass the fee that they used to pay for their kids,” says Ms Othumani adding by dismissing the concept of “all” free education saying parents incur other costs.

Faraja Nyalandu, founder and Executive Director of Shule Direct, an online platform that provides educational learning content for students and teachers in secondary schools says, “Free education has significantly led to an increase in students enrolment in Tanzania. However, once enrolled, the quality of the education delivered is most important, aided by a conducive environment that supports learning both at home and school.”

Damian Mshiu, 19, dropped-out of school in April this year while in form three. He says he quit schooling because he has four siblings who depend on their poor father for schooling. He wanted to take the load off his father’s shoulders.

Their father works as security guard in one of the country’s security company. Their mother is just a house wife suffering from diabetes. They live in a small rented house in Moshi.

“I said, as a brother, let me quit and come to Dar to fight for life so that I can help my father support the education of these youngsters” he told Success while serving his customer a cup of coffee in a busy street at Kariakoo Market.

“For most low income communities with competing priorities such as food provision for the family, this becomes a challenge,” Ms Nyalandu says.

Many analysts are of the opinion that the problem of school dropout cannot totally fade just because the basic education fee has been removed.

“There is the question of food unavailability among many families, particularly pastoral families, students walking long distances to schools, violence against students, pregnancies among young girls in schools and irresponsible parents,” Mr Godfrey Boniventura, Research and Analysis Manager at Haki Elimu says.

He calls for a better system which is multi-contextual and multi-sectoral that will make students love staying at schools rather than homes as it is now.

He says that the dropout rates are higher in public schools than in private schools since the later have succeeded in building that system.

Prof Kitila Mkumbo, a commentator on education issues backed the idea by saying that there needs to be attractive environment in schools for students to continue learning.

“These child-friendly environments will help reduce the number of drop outs we continue to see accelerate in our schools,’ he says. But it will be misleading to assume that all students who dropped-out of schools were pushed by economic disparities and other reasons elaborated before. Moh’d Khamis, 20, and Said Hassan, 30, had different reasons.

Said Hassan quit school in to enjoy football. He wanted to be a famous football player in the country and school did not give him the avenue to nurture his ambition.

He dropped-out while he was in Standard V. But he says, “Looking back I think that was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

Moh’d Khamiswas enrolled in one of the country’s prestigious schools. He says that he dropped-out most often from one school to another and his father worked harder to find him other schools.

“I feel sorry for my father; he did a lot to make sure I get the education as his son. But you know what? I just thought that I and education were quite different things, ” says Moh’d, smiling and showing no signs of regret.

Prof Kitila calls this a behavioral problem which many young people have whereby “peer pressure influences them to drop out of school particularly if there are other things apart from schooling that their friends do.” Ms Nyalandu recommends that education should get a higher allotment in the national GDP than currently provided. She thinks that this year’s budget increase in development which includes education is a good indicator of the Government’s inclination towards human investment.