Tanzania's Education System- Influence from Europe
Tanzania's education system is from the ages of 7 and 14 and started and still is from Germany's program. Compulsory and free, Tanzania's education system is beneficial and helpful for the adult literacy rate is sixty-eight percent, being amongst the highest in Africa. Germany successfully created sixty primary schools, also known as nebenschulen. After three years of schooling in reading, writing, and mathematics there was an additional two years of school, focusing on vocational training, classes about different jobs and occupations. In addition to the primary schools Germany created one high school, also known as oberschule, in Tanga, where available classes included clerical, industrial, teacher training, and some academic courses. A huge success, with five-hundred students and four teachers on its staff, there was also the option of taking German. Futhermore, they created missionary schools, schools where their goal was to westernize Christian converts that were originally caused from their own culture. With missionary schools, they also created government schools where people eventually ended up being clerks, tax collectors, interpreters, artisans, and craftsman. Over the years, the amount of missionary and government schools increased and was more popular. However, the German system didn't involve girls in their education program where their custom was not to educate girls because it showed submissiveness. Even though the Germans started the original education system, when the British came, who were extremely impressed with how much knowledge the Tanzanians had, they added more classes to fit in with the jobs needed. The British needed the education system to be a little different to change the children into people they needed. For example, they opened a school to eventually produce administrators, clerks, and artisans. Despite that, the British had some problems with the missionary schools. The missionary schools goal was to create christians who were devoted into serving their religion, which resulted in building ill-eqiupped bush schools. However, the British on the other hand, only wanted the amount of graduates to be useful for the existing work necessary. An example of how the British did that was enforcing agriculture. The school headmasters started getting students working on school farms. Parents, disagreeing, showed the British that school was a way to have freedom from being able to not work on the fields all day, not to practice the techniques and abilities so they will pay off later. Continuing the process of teaching German to the Tanzanians, The British, however, soon realized that English was associated with higher pay. Wanting more, The British decided to make students from fourth grade up to learn English as the language of instruction. Based by statistics, city students received better education then rural students. Urban schools were better funded, had better teachers, and the chance of getting into a primary school was higher. Additionally, mainland children had to pay fees, however the islanders didn't. Additionally, after the British left, Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania, gave the rich kids a better education, which means he was excluding the poor people who could've been just as smart, but couldn't pay for all their necessities. Nyerere also created schools for different ethnic groups, such as the Chagga and the Hadza. The Chagga were very rich from growing cash crops and were able to buy their kids a good education. Despite that, the Hadza, hunters and gatherers who had to find enough food as their living, was extremely poor and couldn't buy their kids the good education they rightfully deserved. Even so, Nyerere created specific schools for different ethnic groups. This means that Nyerere excluded some kids who had great futures planned but was unable to go with their dreams. Therefore, Tanzania was influenced by the Germans who started the education system and the British who changed the schools to fit their needs. After the British left, Nyerere was able to change some different types of schools, however, the general appearances are the same as the Germans and the British.