Rekindled Hopes of Future Dreams
“With
the coming of GPSA-SSAES initiatives I saw myself gaining hope again and seeing
a brighter future ahead of me,” Said Sarah.
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| Sarah |
Sarah Austin has been a student from grade one up to grade eight at Namiwawa Primary School and g
One of the major challenges
that affect service delivery in the education sector is shortage of teaching
and learning materials that results to high dropout rates and children walk
long distances in search of schools with quality and better learning
environments. Furthermore, the shortage of teaching and learning materials
affects performance of learners, as the learning environment becomes a
challenge to access information. In addition it increases workload on teachers
as they are forced to write the passages on the board to enable every learner
to see the content during lessons.
Namiwawa Primary School is
one of the schools that was selected to benefit from GPSA interventions in
Mwanza district. It has eight grades with a total of 528 learners and has 14
teachers. The school had been facing a lot of challenges
including shortage of school blocks, lack of sanitary facilities for girls
and teaching and learning materials just to mention a few.
“Since I joined the
school I have never had a chance to use a text book on my own during lessons,
due to shortage of textbooks at the school. No learners could have
a chance of taking text books home for reference after classes. My performance
was dwindling and my hope of becoming a nurse was shuttered.” explained
Sarah.
“When I was in my
lower classes I saw many elder girls dropout of school and getting married
because of being frustrated with poor quality education that led to most girls
repeating same grades due to lack of teaching and learning materials at the
school.” Added Sarah Austin who hails from Suludala Village, Group
Village Headman Kandulu in Mwanza District.
“However, with the coming
of GPSA-SSAES initiatives, I saw myself gaining hope again and seeing a
brighter future ahead of me,” said Sarah.
GPSA-SSAES engaged learners
in a community scorecard process (a social accountability tool) where learners
had an opportunity to raise their concerns faced at the school. Learners
were given a chance to express themselves on teacher’s performance, how
teachers treat them and how effective the delivery of services at the school
was. The process empowered learners to enable them express themselves in the
presence of the teachers, parents as well as government officials without
fear.
“The coming in of GPSA
project at our school improved a lot of things including availability of
text books that enables learners to use the books during lessons as well as
having access to text books after classes to use at home thereby improving our
reading skills,” explained Sarah.
Improved delivery of the
education services at the school has resulted in better performance of learners
due to committed teachers, who after the community scorecard sessions realized
how accountable they are to citizens (learners and parents) that receive the
education services. “I would testify that GPSA project has rekindled not only
my future dreams but of many leaners at the school. I am the testimony of the
impact that GPSA interventions has brought at Namakwa School as I am now in
high school 2nd grade at Providence secondary school.”
Explained an excited Sarah Austin.
By Elizabeth Mhango (Project
Manager for the Global Partnership for Social Accountability Project)
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