Breaking Barriers
- oa3191
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Providing Quality Education for Orphans in Tanzania
The educational system in Tanzania is complex and favors the privileged. While education is officially “free” up to age fifteen, the cost for uniforms, school supplies, meals, and examination fees, are expenses that many families simply cannot afford. Many families will have to sell a goat or other asset to pay for school expenses. (We actually saw a goat going to market riding in the arms of a motorcycle driver. Not an unusual sight in Africa.) For orphans who lack family support, even these options are out of reach. Who will sell a goat for them?
Giving Hope: Orphans Africa Makes Education Possible for Orphans
This is where Orphans Africa steps in, providing orphaned children with a pathway to education, the single most powerful tool for breaking the cycle of poverty. While some public schools may occasionally admit non-paying orphans as charity, orphans are mostly seen as a financial burden.
Word spreads through communities about the Orphans Africa (OA) schools that accept orphans. Many children tell us they found out about OA after hearing about it on the radio or from their friends.
Understanding Tanzania’s School Structure
School in Tanzania lasts thirteen years, following the British educational model inherited from colonial times.
Primary Level: Standard 1 to 7 (USA grades 1-7 equivalent)
Secondary Level: Form 1 to 4 (USA grades 8-11 equivalent)
Advanced Level Studies: Form 5 and 6 (USA grade 12 and 1 year junior college equivalent)
University: 3 years, leading to a bachelor’s degree
A large number of Tanzanian children will have no formal education beyond the primary level, and they may not complete that. Completing the secondary level is also challenging. For example, if a girl becomes pregnant, she is required by law to leave school and not return. Other barriers include lack of money, lack of family support, cultural expectations, the need to work on family farms or watch siblings, early marriage and a system that fails to support students at all levels.
How Do OA Schools Differ from Public Schools in Tanzania?
Language of Instruction
Public nursery and primary schools teach exclusively in Swahili, with nursery schools providing little academic instruction. Secondary schools, on the other hand, use English as the language of instruction, creating a significant language barrier for many students when they transition from primary to secondary education. Imagine arriving to secondary school on your first day and discovering they teach classes in a different language. This contributes to the low number that move onto secondary school.
Our students gain a critical advantage by being taught English early, starting in nursery and primary school, along with foundational math and other academic subjects. This head start gives them a bridge into secondary education.
Courses Offered
Required classes for primary school students include Swahili, English, Civics, Biology, and Math. In secondary school, the curriculum expands to include sciences such as chemistry and physics. We visited a public secondary school whose chemistry lab consisted of a rolling cart with a sink in it to serve a class of 300 students.
Computer courses are considered important, but few schools have updated and reliable computer labs or access to practical technology due to limited resources and frequent power outages.
Many crucial subjects are not covered in public schools, including health and menstrual hygiene, leadership, or communication skills.
Strategic Improvements
OA faces the same obstacles as other schools in developing countries, but we have made strategic improvements: we built new science labs at Mwaji Secondary School and supply the labs with needed supplies and materials. We actively encourage girls to pursue sciences. We have smaller classes for individualized attention.
We have computer labs at the Marilynn Primary School, Mwaji Secondary School and Isandula Technical College. We work to keep the computer labs updated and powered by solar panels to ensure learning can continue in the evening and during the frequent power outages.
We provide health insurance for our students, along with health and menstrual hygiene education and washable, reusable kits for girls. With our smaller class sizes, we are able to provide mentoring and encouragement. We strive to nurture future leaders who will make a lasting impact on their communities.
Teaching Styles
Teaching in African public schools typically relies on rote memorization. This is due to the emphasis on passing the national tests. Overcrowded classrooms, limited supplies, and a shortage of qualified teachers, especially in rural areas, makes quality education difficult. Teacher frustration with the low test scores and lack of resources result in high turnover.
We also have schools in rural areas. Mwaji Secondary offers teacher housing to attract and retain qualified staff and a dormitory for girls to provide safe accommodation and increase girls’ enrollment. We have also built a girl’s dorm at Isandula Vocational College, allowing girls from far distances to avoid unsafe travel to and from school and to have a safe place to live. Some of our students return to teach at our schools.
Because of our smaller class sizes, our instructors are able to focus on relationships and create a family environment on the campus that is readily noticeable.
National Exams: The Gateway to the Future
National exams at Standard 7 and Form 4 are critical milestones. Failure to pass the Standard 7 exam means students cannot continue to public secondary school, leaving many behind with limited options. This is another reason many students cannot go further in their education.
It can take up to a year to receive the test results. During this interim period, students, particularly girls—face increased risks, including potential pressure to work in a household, do agricultural labor, or enter into early marriage. It is no surprise that the public secondary schools have low test results and the failure rate is too high.
In contrast, our students routinely outperform their peers in both public and private schools—it is rare for any of our students to fail. We recently received the national testing score results from 2025. Orphans Africa students significantly outperformed state schools and some private schools.
Vocational College Versus University
Not all of our students who graduate from secondary school will go on to the university. Some students will attend vocational schools for job readiness training. Tanzania needs electrical engineers, car electrical mechanics, business entrepreneurs, tailors, drivers, and computer literate workers. Our Isandula Vocational College provides training in all those areas and orphans attend for free.
Our Conclusion?
Well, we think it’s pretty clear that there’s a vast difference between Tanzanian Public Schools and OA schools. Our students are receiving a higher quality education which results in more opportunities for them. The orphans consider it a blessing that they can attend school with their peers rather than suffer ostracism. It is a double blessing that they can attend higher quality schools where staff and faculty really love and care for them like family.
We know that these children are part of the future of the world and the world is getting smaller. We are placing our bets on these beautiful children to use their education to rise out of poverty and improve their communities and the world we all share.
