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Politicians frustrating informal education programme in Rukwa
2008-05-13 09:13:58
By PATRICK KISEMBO
Complimentary basic education in Tanzania (CoBET) is a non formal educational system that gives another chance for those who have not acquired formal education.
Since its inception many Tanzanians have benefited from the system.
However in Rukwa region, the situation is different as some politicians have been blamed for frustrating the system.
Political activities have been cited as a major factor behind the failure by an informal education system for people who did not have access to formal education, commonly known as Complimentary Basic Education in Tanzania (CoBET), in Nkasi District, Rukwa Region.
Political campaigns that are being carried use abusive language to contestants not knowing that in so doing such politicians impact negatively on the community.
Many people who had started to join the CoBET programme were frustrated by the misinterpretation and the distortion of the word MEMKWA, which is a Kiswahili word for CoBET.
``How can you vote for that MEMKWA`` meaning how can one vote for somebody who has never attended school, an ignorant person.
This, according to teachers and the education unit responsible for adult education, hindered the development of the programme, necessitating the authorities to start visiting MEMKWA centres for the express purpose of encouraging people to join the programme.
``The District Council had to incur an unnecessary cost because we had to use substantial amounts of money to travel long distances to start something which we had already set up successfully,`` said the District Adult Education Officer, Ezekiel Haonga.
Haonga who has worked as a teacher for 38 years spending more that half of his life in Rukwa region, says that for the people of Nkasi, calling somebody MEMKWA is a big insult that calls for an apology if one is to avoid a reprisal.
``But the politicians never apologized as a result it has discouraged eligible persons to join complimentary basic education system. Teachers who had wanted to volunteer to teach the pupils also changed their mind,`` he explains.
He says that the distortion of the meaning of the word started in 2005 during the general elections and came up repeatedly in a by-election for councillors in 2007 in some areas including Namanyere and Kilando sub-towns.
Some candidates were called MEMKWA meaning that they were ignorant or had not attended school.
MEMKWA` is a type of educational activities organized around the learning needs of specific target group and takes place outside the formal schooling system. There are two types of pupils attending MEMKWA classes.
One is that which allows a certain age group to sit for standard four national examinations and if they perform well, they join standard five where they are integrated into the formal education system.
Another is a system which allows pupils to attend classes for three years after which they are allowed to sit for standard seven national examinations.
If they pass they join secondary schools just like pupils who had gone through formal education.
The DAEO says that with all the politics that was made to discourage people from joining CoBET, the Nkasi District Council performed better than the two other districts in the region, Mpanda and Sumbawanga districts.
A big number of MEMKWA pupils joined secondary schools although they were being taught by teachers who had completed form four but had not attended any training.
They acquired the necessary skills by collaborating with formal trained and experienced teachers.
``In 2007 we had 43 pupils who joined MEMKWA classes, but only 20 managed to sit for standard seven examinations and 14 of them passed. Their highest mark was 182/250,`` says Haonga.
The results helped the Council to prove to the politicians that MEMKWA does not mean people who are ignorant or fools.
``Actually some of our pupils were even brighter than those who had attended formal education. I think councillors who had championed the distortion of the word MEMKWA have started to realise that they were wrong.
But the bad thing is that the minds of many people have been tainted; it will take time before they accept that MEMKWA does not mean ignorance, and this can be done by the community itself and teachers when teaching their pupils,`` he says.
He mentioned centres that have performed well in standard seven examinations as Nkomolo I and Kipili along Lake Tanganyika, Mtenga and Londokazi.
Yet the District Adult Education Officer admits that running MEMKWA is very difficult in that conditions attached to the programme make supervision difficult.
``For example, pupils attend classes as and when they like.
The volunteer teachers are another problem because although the regulation requires that they must at least complete form four, the criteria for selection does not consider their performance in the final examinations,`` he explains.
In dealing with the pupils teachers must follow some special principles when teaching and marking their exercises since some of them are grown ups and others are married.
``We do not mark their exercise books with an `X` mark, because this would discourage and demoralize them. So we use a special mark which does not indicate whether the pupil has passed or failed, but we tell them how they have performed,`` Haonga clarified.
The success of MEMKWA pupils depends much on the creativity of teachers.
Vitus Mwanisenga, a head teacher for Kipundukala primary school is one among many teachers who say politics has demoralized the programme but he decided to call his pupils `pupils attending non-formal education` instead of calling them MEMKWA pupils.
He says that some of the pupils who had joined the programme stopped attending classes after being called MEMKWA.
``This is a big challenge that we faced. I had to sit down with my colleagues to decide what name to call the pupils so that we do not lose them,`` he says.
Mwanisenga blames politicians for all the pessimism they have created about the programme, pointing an accusing finger particularly to councillors.
``These people are infringing the development of the education system in our district.``
His pupils in MEMKWA class, Deborah Francisco and Crispin Malifeza, feel comfortable with their counterparts in the formal classes and prefer to be called non-formal pupils rather than being called MEMKWA pupils.
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