Karagwe Education Quality Improvement

I am applying for The Elevate Prize with the main purpose of improving girls' and women's access to and advancement in the learning and teaching and contribute towards the achievement of gender parity and equality in education. If am selected a winner will use the funds to construct a boarding modern secondary school for girls at Karagwe district. This secondary school will give girls and women especially those from rural areas access to quality education that will help them to lift families out of poverty, reduce inequality and deprivation.                                        

My name is Berthold M. Bonny. I am the Executive Director of Karagwe Education Quality Improvement (KEQI). In 2018 I very fortunate to obtain the opportunity to work as Accounting and registration assistant at Bowling Green State University in United States of America. While working on this role I was tasked to prepare a three days’ workshop on girls’ leadership in economy and technology. This was the workshop for teenage girls who were the residents Bowling Green city and who had hired one of the buildings of the university for the workshop.

I was very fascinated by girls’ contributions and determination to positively change their societies. Their ideas made me to determine to start a campaign on promotion of girls’ education once I go back to my home country Tanzania. Immediately After returning to Tanzania in 2020, I co-founded this organization. We founded this organization with the vision of having a society where quality education is maintained as the basic human right and a key to poverty alleviation and sustainable human development. One of our main future goals is to ensure ensuring girls in Tanzania like those in America obtain quality education and contribute to economic development of the country.

According to the World Bank fact sheet (2020), 300,000 children in Tanzania were unable to start secondary education due to lack of space over the past two years.  Meanwhile, among enrolled students, 60,000 students drop out of lower secondary school, half of them girls, per year. In this number, 5,500 girls drop out of school due to pregnancy per year. Karagwe is one of the districts in Tanzania where schoolgirls have been negatively impacted by shortage of secondary schools. In their search for secondary education these girls between 11 years old and 22 years old are facing several hurdles. Many have been forced to walk three to five miles to and from school. As the treacherous walk takes place at both dawn and dusk, these girls have been vulnerable to sexual abuse en route. With a higher risk of abuse comes a higher risk of pregnancy, and in a society that believes “pregnant girls have expelled themselves from education”.

Therefore, KEQI is seeking to establish a boarding modern girls’ secondary school to provide a better education opportunity to these girls. This school is expected to provide lower secondary education and will accommodate 300 girls especially those coming from rural areas.    

The education model that will be provided KEQI Modern girls secondary school is what makes it unique from other projects in Tanzania. This model aims at boosting access and retention rates for girls at school. This model project not only implements more dormitories for girls, but also significantly increases health, sanitation, and nutrition services as well as granting education scholarships access to girls who are extremely poor, disabled, orphans and those who have been expelled from education due to cultural norms of Tanzania societies (girls who obtained pregnancy during studies).

This model will also include school-based initiatives such as teacher training, tutoring sessions, and girls’ leadership program. These programs will increase students’ enrolment and enable girls to complete their studies with enough skills and select the best careers which fit their nurtured skills. 

KEQI modern girls’ secondary school has effectively eliminated barriers and improved the chances of girls who wish to be educated by undertaking innovative strategies including placing a school at a proximity distance. UN Report on Women (2012) portrays that when the distance to a girl’s school is increased by a half-kilometer, her chances of enrollment decrease by 20 percent. longer distances have reinforced security concerns, and, in some contexts, it has led to early marriages. The school will also ensure good perception and treatment by individual teachers of girls, and application of rules, regulations, and administrative practices in the conduct of various interactions. A study conducted by Birch & Ladd, (1997) reveals that a girl is more likely to continue her schooling if she feels safe and secure in her school and learning environment. Lastly, the school will recruit, train, and deploy qualified female candidates. A study conducted by Theirworld (2017), reveals that parents who are reluctant to send their daughters to school due to gendered cultural beliefs may feel more comfortable if the teacher is a female. Female teachers have served as role models for younger girls and in changing perceptions of society in terms of girls’ education.