Dear Tanzania, yes this situation can be fixed

It is the dry season in Kigali and the grass is really brown where it is and dust reigns where it isn’t. As if that is not bad enough a bad cold choose to visit me and kept me at home for a while as I struggled to stay hydrated. Of course my editor takes no prisoners so I had to drag myself out of bed and heed his calls to submit my article. I almost forgot what I had set out to write when that phenomenal girl, Malala Yousafzai who was shot in the head by the Taliban, appeared on Al Jazeera giving a live address to UN delegates. Resilience is her other name for sure. Better news came in a day earlier when it was finally confirmed that Kenyan footballer, Victor Wanyama has finally joined an English Premier League club, Southampton. Wanyama became the talk of town when he scored against Barcelona in a Champions League game. Of course Kenyans cannot brag to be the only ones with a premiership player since there is a Burundian turning out for Newcastle United in the form of Gael Bigirimana. And not to be left out, Rwandans also have a representative in the form of Alfred Martin Mugabo, who turns out for Arsenal FC’s reserve team. Away from the premier league, Ugandans also received good news with former Uganda Cranes captain, Ibrahim Sekagya making the switch from Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg to its American sister club, New York Red Bulls. After captaining the Austrian side to a league double, Sekagya will now have the pleasure of playing in the same team with Arsenal legend, Thierry Henry in the US Major League Soccer. At this point you may want to ask me about football in Tanzania and I could point to the game between Tanzania’s Taifa Stars and Uganda Cranes. However there is something about Tanzania that had me thinking a lot in the recent days. It concerns the country’s education sector. Tanzania’s media reported that over 10,000 places in A Level are likely to remain vacant as a result of the massive failures recorded in last year’s O Level national exams. Tanzania can no longer pretend that there is no problem affecting its education system. The major contention has been with the language of instruction. Tanzanians use Swahili as the language of instruction throughout primary and by the time they get to secondary many are more comfortable with the language that has unified them than English the world’s true global language. There surely is a problem of English language teaching in Tanzania and since form four exams are written in English it is clear that many students will have trouble understanding the questions before them. Therefore students need to have very good teachers of English and more emphasis placed on the subject. We all know that in an African Ujamaa setting (if I can borrow Mwalimu Nyerere’s teachings) if a homestead lacks something then one should not feel shy to ask the neighbour for help. In the 70s the gallant soldiers of the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces joined hands with other Ugandans to ‘help’ Uganda in getting rid of Idi Amin Dada. Even as nelson Mandela lies in hospital, I am sure he remembers that when the going was tough, Tanzania offered the ANC military wing a home to train from in preparation to fight for the apartheid government back home. I therefore believe that just like Uganda and South Africa knocked on Tanzania’s door for help, Tanzania can also seek help from its neighbours to address this small issue affecting its education sector. Yes Tanzania can hire teachers from Uganda and Kenya for example to teach English in their schools. And by the way this would even be a good time since teachers in Uganda and Kenya are asking for pay rises that their respective governments seem unwilling to offer. This solution is not even unique in the region. When Rwanda switched from French to English several Kenyan and Ugandan teachers were hired to address the gap that had been created by the switch. Actually to keep its pride, Tanzania can simply go for an exchange programme where it supplies its Swahili teachers to Uganda in exchange for English language teachers. That way at the end of the day we have Ugandans speaking better Swahili while Tanzanians willspeak better English. I know I may get a bashing from Tanzanians but I will just be listening to the classic song by The Temptations, “Aint Too Proud To Beg.” Blog: www.ssenyonga.wordpress.comTwitter: @ssojo81