Browsing by Author "Kweka, Aikaeli Ndesamburo"

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    Integration of the primary school and the community in Moshi district
    (University of Dar es Salaam, 1975) Kweka, Aikaeli Ndesamburo
    The aim of this study was to explore the problems and prospects of integrating the primary school with the local community. The study was supported by a case of one primary school and its local community in Moshi District. In 1973 the Ministry of National Education proposed the establishment of new community education centres for both children and adults with the following purposes. a) To arouse people’s political awareness and use it for their own development. b)To help rural communities raise their economic productivity. c) To help the people improve their standard of living. The idea of integrating the school and the community is not new in Tanzania. It started with the British policy of educational adaptation in1925. Despite the efforts made in issuing policy documents from London and Dar es Salaam the intended integration did not take place. The British educational system was critized by Tanzanian educators after independence as divorcing the individual from the community he is supposed to serve. In Part I, Chapter One, the British colonial policy of educational adaptation is examined for the purpose of finding out why it failed to integrate the school and the local community. A lot of ideas were discussed at the top but they never got to the masses. The bureaucratic administrative structure did not allow for mass participation. Chapter Two deals with policy documents related to school and community integration after 1967, the year of Arusha Declaration with its statement of intent for socialist transformation. Reference is made to Education for self-reliance, TANU Guidelines (Mwongozo), Decentralization and other documents which aim at transferring power from the bureaucracy to the people so that people at the local level can consider, plan and implement their development projects. Various documents from the Ministry of National Education have emphasized the idea of integrating the school with the local community. Part II, Chapter Three, gives a descriptive survey of the community. The history, economy, socio-political conditions and administrative structures of the community were studies as factors which could explain community action towards their developmental institutions. Chapter Four describes the methodology of the study. Interviews, Questionnaires and Observations were used to find out information on the following areas:- a)The community and its history, economy, administrative structure and problems. This included people’s knowledge of their community and the policy of socialism and self-reliance. 104 people gave information on various aspects of this section. b) The school and the amount of integration. This included the study of the attitudes of community people, school teachers and pupils towards integration. There were 94 respondents in this section. c) Information system. This included interviews with 15 leaders and Ministry of National Education officials to find out what part they played in promoting school and community integration. Chapter Five shows and discussed the findings of the people’s views and attitudes towards school and community integration, and Chapter Six draws conclusions and recommendations on the findings. The study revealed that there were to some extent minor elements of integration in the following areas:- (a) School committee (b)Parents’ contribution towards maintenance of the school. (c) Information to parents on the progress of their children in school. (d) School “open days”. (e) Adult education for literacy. These activities stem from the fact that most of the schools in the district were built by the parents. Their reasons for building schools can be explained by their views towards school, which were given in the following order:- (a)A good school sends many children to secondary school. (b) The school should teach more manual skills. (c) The school teaches good behaviour. The school is therefore seen as an institution preparing children for further education and if it fails in this it should teach them manual skills which will enable them to earn a living. The school should at the same time teach them good behaviour. The parents want to know what the school is doing to achieve this through the school committee, “open days” and information from teachers on their children’s performance at school. The economy of the community coupled with land shortage and the traditional land tenure act as a hindrance to the absorption of youth into agriculture. Therefore the parents see that the school should prepare children for out-of-farm employment in the community or out of the community. The parents did not see that they could participate in running the school since this could not contribute to the achievement of those aims. The parents liked their school and were against teachers’ participation in various village committees or pupils’ participation in community projects because this would “interfere” with school learning. The school teachers agreed that the school should be an integral part of the community but they did not want the community people to tell them what should be taught or how the school taught them relevant skills which could be put to use after they left school and 21 out of 43 said that they would remain in the village as farmers. Pupils were not against having parents decide what should be taught aft school but they were against having parents participate in selecting pupils for further education because they said there were dangers of nepotism. The individual ownership of the means of production especially land and business enterprises are inducing the formation of class structure in the community and unless this trend is rectified integration of the school and community cannot be for the interest of the masses. The information system and the bureaucratic administrative structure are poor in that the people have not understood the Party policy on socialism and self-reliance and there was no forum for thorough discussion of the policy documents which could arouse the political consciousness of the masses. In addition to this, the Ministry of National Education personnel did not encourage teachers in the effort to integrate the school and the local community. A number of recommendations have been given with the aim of ensuring that the Party policy documents reach the masses for discussion and implementation.