Scholarships ...plus +
When this partnership started about twelve years ago, we were told that only about ten per cent of Tanzanians had the opportunity to enroll in secondary education (high school). At that time, the cost of a year's secondary tuition, room and board was higher than the Tanzanian per capita income.
From the start, one of our partnership's highest priority ongoing efforts has been to provide secondary and university scholarships for students who meet academic standards. It's the most important gift we can give, our partners often tell us.
And so Shepherd of the Valley's support for scholarships has grown from six scholarships in 2001 to a consistent 140 scholarships for the past five years. 100 of those scholarships are for secondary students from Tungamalenga Parish ($360 each). Another 25 secondary school scholarships are provided to orphans from the diocese owned Huruma Centre. The rest are post secondary scholarships for students in a variety of settings -- theology students at Tumaini University, nursing students, medical students, community development students, students attending teacher colleges, business students (ranging from $500 to $3500 each).
We learned some interesting things about education, scholarships, and changing demographics when we visited Tungamalenga this past summer.
Our partners are telling us that things have changed in twelve years. When we started our scholarship support, there were so few Tanzanians obtaining secondary educations that a person could get a good job with even a form four certificate (roughly the equivalent of a US tenth grade education). With a form six (twelfth grade) diploma, a student could go far.
Now that more Tanzanians are achieving secondary education, the educational requirements to get a good job are rising, also. Now it's not enough to have a secondary diploma, the student may need vocational training or a university degree.
As a result, our partners are asking us to provide more post secondary scholarships -- in addition to maintaining the number of secondary scholarships we have provided for the past five years.
We've learned another interesting thing about Tanzanian education in the past ten years. In the beginning, we (and our parent organization, Bega Kwa Bega) held the assumption that if we provided scholarships for students, that reliable stream of scholarship income would enable the schools to make upgrades and improvements that would benefit all the students attending the school. We knew that Tanzanian schools often had enrolled students who would pay a registration fee but be unable to pay the full tuition. Schools would sometimes allow those students to attend classes for a semester until being sent home for lack of payment. Other schools would allow those students to do some kind of onsite labor that would offset their unpaid tuition. We thought that if there were enough scholarship students paying full tuition at a school, the institution would have the resources to upgrade their infrastructure -- providing things like textbooks, science labs, and the like.
Unfortunately, what we've observed is that while some things at these schools have improved -- nutrition, housing, quality of teachers -- the scholarship tuition revenue is not enough to fill all the gaps. At many of the secondary schools our students attend, there are still only one or few textbooks per classroom of 60 - 80 students. Science lab equipment is still minimal, and students prepare for "theoretical" rather than "practical" laboratory tests. Technology is limited if not completely absent.
And so in the past year, on the Minnesota side of our partnership at both our congregational and synodical level, we have been discussing how to expand our educational support. How can we find a way to ask donors to support not just scholarships for individual students, but also projects that will lift up the level of instruction for all students at a particular school?
We're thinking of this as Scholarships + plus +.
Last spring, Shepherd of the Valley used some of its educational funds to support a pilot project at Image Secondary School. We gave $4000 toward a $10,000 project to install solar power that will power a computer lab. Ultra lite laptop computers are being loaded with educational software that will supplement math and science curriculum at the school. If it is effective, this poject could be replicated at the other secondary schools owned by the diocese.
We have requests from other schools, as well. Idodi Secondary School is the school closest to Tungamalenga Parish -- in fact, it is located within the parish boundaries. 70% of our Tungamalenga students attend this government school for forms 1-4. Idodi has an outstanding record of achievement -- student scores on the national exams place this school in the top ten percent of all Tanzanian secondary schools.
How Idodi manages that standard of achievement is amazing. We are told that even here, classrooms of 60 students share 1-5 textbooks. When you walk into a classroom, the blackboard is full of course content. Students take copious notes in order to collect the gist of a text book. They study their notes because they don't have ready access to the text.
Imagine what these well taught students could achieve if they had enough text books to study!
So here's our challenge. Our partners are asking us to maintain our support for the 100 + 25 secondary + 15 post secondary scholarships that we have provided for the past five years.
On top of that, our partners are asking for additional post secondary scholarship funding. How much? How many? We recently received a list from Pastor Naftal detailing 28 more students who need some amount of scholarship support in amounts ranging from $300 to $3000, for everything from nursing school to theology to business to teacher training.
On top of that, we have opportunities to support education for all students by funding targeted projects at specific schools. At Idodi Secondary School, $5000 would provide enough textbooks to bring the book to student ratio down from 1:60 to 1:10.
So this fall when you see the posters and notices for "Tanzanian Scholarship Fund" at Shepherd of the Valley, this is what we're talking about:
+ Changing the lives of students, one scholarship at a time.
+ Upgrading the resources of schools, textbook by textbook.
+ Going beyond secondary school scholarships, to nursing school, university, and theology.
Supporting education in as many ways as we can.
Can you help?
Asante sana. [Thank you very much.]
From the start, one of our partnership's highest priority ongoing efforts has been to provide secondary and university scholarships for students who meet academic standards. It's the most important gift we can give, our partners often tell us.
And so Shepherd of the Valley's support for scholarships has grown from six scholarships in 2001 to a consistent 140 scholarships for the past five years. 100 of those scholarships are for secondary students from Tungamalenga Parish ($360 each). Another 25 secondary school scholarships are provided to orphans from the diocese owned Huruma Centre. The rest are post secondary scholarships for students in a variety of settings -- theology students at Tumaini University, nursing students, medical students, community development students, students attending teacher colleges, business students (ranging from $500 to $3500 each).
We learned some interesting things about education, scholarships, and changing demographics when we visited Tungamalenga this past summer.
Our partners are telling us that things have changed in twelve years. When we started our scholarship support, there were so few Tanzanians obtaining secondary educations that a person could get a good job with even a form four certificate (roughly the equivalent of a US tenth grade education). With a form six (twelfth grade) diploma, a student could go far.
Now that more Tanzanians are achieving secondary education, the educational requirements to get a good job are rising, also. Now it's not enough to have a secondary diploma, the student may need vocational training or a university degree.
As a result, our partners are asking us to provide more post secondary scholarships -- in addition to maintaining the number of secondary scholarships we have provided for the past five years.
We've learned another interesting thing about Tanzanian education in the past ten years. In the beginning, we (and our parent organization, Bega Kwa Bega) held the assumption that if we provided scholarships for students, that reliable stream of scholarship income would enable the schools to make upgrades and improvements that would benefit all the students attending the school. We knew that Tanzanian schools often had enrolled students who would pay a registration fee but be unable to pay the full tuition. Schools would sometimes allow those students to attend classes for a semester until being sent home for lack of payment. Other schools would allow those students to do some kind of onsite labor that would offset their unpaid tuition. We thought that if there were enough scholarship students paying full tuition at a school, the institution would have the resources to upgrade their infrastructure -- providing things like textbooks, science labs, and the like.
Unfortunately, what we've observed is that while some things at these schools have improved -- nutrition, housing, quality of teachers -- the scholarship tuition revenue is not enough to fill all the gaps. At many of the secondary schools our students attend, there are still only one or few textbooks per classroom of 60 - 80 students. Science lab equipment is still minimal, and students prepare for "theoretical" rather than "practical" laboratory tests. Technology is limited if not completely absent.
And so in the past year, on the Minnesota side of our partnership at both our congregational and synodical level, we have been discussing how to expand our educational support. How can we find a way to ask donors to support not just scholarships for individual students, but also projects that will lift up the level of instruction for all students at a particular school?
We're thinking of this as Scholarships + plus +.
Last spring, Shepherd of the Valley used some of its educational funds to support a pilot project at Image Secondary School. We gave $4000 toward a $10,000 project to install solar power that will power a computer lab. Ultra lite laptop computers are being loaded with educational software that will supplement math and science curriculum at the school. If it is effective, this poject could be replicated at the other secondary schools owned by the diocese.
We have requests from other schools, as well. Idodi Secondary School is the school closest to Tungamalenga Parish -- in fact, it is located within the parish boundaries. 70% of our Tungamalenga students attend this government school for forms 1-4. Idodi has an outstanding record of achievement -- student scores on the national exams place this school in the top ten percent of all Tanzanian secondary schools.
How Idodi manages that standard of achievement is amazing. We are told that even here, classrooms of 60 students share 1-5 textbooks. When you walk into a classroom, the blackboard is full of course content. Students take copious notes in order to collect the gist of a text book. They study their notes because they don't have ready access to the text.
Imagine what these well taught students could achieve if they had enough text books to study!
So here's our challenge. Our partners are asking us to maintain our support for the 100 + 25 secondary + 15 post secondary scholarships that we have provided for the past five years.
On top of that, our partners are asking for additional post secondary scholarship funding. How much? How many? We recently received a list from Pastor Naftal detailing 28 more students who need some amount of scholarship support in amounts ranging from $300 to $3000, for everything from nursing school to theology to business to teacher training.
On top of that, we have opportunities to support education for all students by funding targeted projects at specific schools. At Idodi Secondary School, $5000 would provide enough textbooks to bring the book to student ratio down from 1:60 to 1:10.
So this fall when you see the posters and notices for "Tanzanian Scholarship Fund" at Shepherd of the Valley, this is what we're talking about:
+ Changing the lives of students, one scholarship at a time.
+ Upgrading the resources of schools, textbook by textbook.
+ Going beyond secondary school scholarships, to nursing school, university, and theology.
Supporting education in as many ways as we can.
Can you help?
Asante sana. [Thank you very much.]
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