Tinga Tinga, Tanzania: Sarafina: “This is my year. I’m going to produce the best students”

Tanzania has been without formal preschool in Government schools for a long time and was mainly dominated by expensive, private owned Kindergartens in low density suburbs and close to the city centre. This was out of reach of the majority who resided in high density suburbs and locations. Kids were being enrolled into standard one without ever attending preschool. The impact was very heavy upon the early learning teachers.


Untrained housewives and retired teachers who had the means and especially property, saw it fit to capitalize on the situation. They stated to form backyard preschools. These types of schools sprouted throughout the locations. Tenants got moved out of houses to pave way for a classroom. Parents who had these young kids fell in for the trap and they enrolled their kids. Instead of improving on the situation, it still had a very big negative impact on the kids when they started standard one. Their level of understanding was way below the expected entry level. Teachers of standard one still had a huge task to bring the kids up to a better level.

That being the fact and the community in general being ignorant of the issue, the Ministry of Education and some schools made it mandatory that, unless a student attends a preschool class at a formal primary school, enrolling that kid to standard one would be unacceptable. One such school was Kimara Baruti Primary school in Kimara. They started the preschool class in 2004.

The school engaged the services of one Sarafina Jesta in 2007 and she has been teaching this class since then. The average number of students in the class then was around 40. Since last year though, her class enrollment soared up to 60 students and 65 students this year. Her involvement in teaching preschool made it easy for the standard one teacher. Hers is the only class at the school and she is faced with a class consisting of kids who are aged from 3 to 6 years all in one sitting. Their level of understanding is very different and everyday she is faced with kids, some who are still fit babysitting and some who are almost ready for Standard one enrollment.

For her, it’s a common feature to have some very young kids falling asleep during a lesson due to their young age whilst others are fighting for a place to sit on or for a color pencil to use in a drawing. Sarafina has to do with almost no resources at all. She has no textbooks or even reading books to help her students. At one time she resorted to the use of posters in her class but the non availability of windows on most classrooms made it very easy for vandalism to take place. Posters where pulled down and torn apart or simply taken away and burnt. It’s this kind of situation that makes her a teacher she is – make do with whatever is there.

Sarafina attended the Tinga Tinga workshop held in Dar Es Salaam and out of the workshop she, just like all the other attendees, walked away with a set of Tinga Tinga tales books. She has put the books to maximum use in her class since it’s the first time in her career when her students have had a reading book per person. Kid’s faces lit up with excitement as they went over the pages of the book fascinated by the colorful drawings. Since receiving these books, Sarafina says everyday she is looking forward to being in class with her students whom she reads for and they dramatize the Tinga Tinga Tales stories together. All she could say was, “This is my year. I’m going to produce the best students”.

by Charles Nyembe