Save the Children Tanzania’s education focus on achieving increased access to Safe and Inclusive Quality Education objective which aligns to SDG 4, focuses on Girls Education, Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD), Basic Education, use of technology and innovations to ensure learning is available for all children, and equipping adolescents with skills for successful transition. To contribute achieving this goal, SAVE THE CHILDREN TANZANIA works with the government at all levels and community-based structures through innovative approaches to support the government deliver its Education Sector Development Plans (ESDP III 2021/22-2025/26) as well as Early Childhood Development Multi-Sectoral Programme (2021/22-2025/26. SAVE THE CHILDREN TANZANIA is the member of education networks TENMET and TECDEN which works to influence policies and practices in education and training. SAVE THE CHILDREN TANZANIA works to contribute to the following:
Increased proportion of children aged 36-59 months who are developmentally on track,
Increased proportion of children of official primary school age enrolled in primary school, and
Reduced proportion of youth aged 15- 24 years not in education, employment or training (NEET).
Responsive parenting: Save the Children Tanzania supports parents/ caregivers from the most deprived households adopt behaviours and strategies to enable their children realize age-appropriate growth, healthy development and learning from birth through pre-primary. SC has developed caregivers parenting curricula for training caregivers of 0-3- and 4–6-year-old children and oriented community facilitators on the curriculum to train the caregivers. The content of both curricula focuses on positive parenting, early learning, nutrition, emotional wellbeing and child protection facilitated through wider sensitization activities.
Approaches
Enabling Teachers: have the Children Tanzania improves pre-primary teaching practices and learning environment to support the school readiness skills’ development of children. This approach employs cycles of Teachers Professional Development that follow the principle of 50:30:20 (50% on the job/experiential/self-study, 30% learning with colleagues/peers, and 20% learning with experts). Each cycle lasts for 5-6 weeks covering one or two competencies. Because of effectiveness of this approach, 75% of teachers in our intervention area were/are assessed as “proficient” or “advanced” at end line in each of nine individually assessed competencies compared to 53% at baseline. This implies the pre-primary teachers are more competent in boosting the acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills amongst the pre-primary learners and helping the children to cope with social and emotional distress.
Safe Schools: This is an all-inclusive and hazards approach that have the Children Tanzania uses to keep students safe in and around school and meaningfully learn. Through this approach, SC has successfully strengthened knowledge and understanding of ‘school community’ on gender-based violence (GBV) and violence against children (VAG) such that students are demonstrating self-protection knowledge, skills and behaviours. Alike, teachers, and school committees are gradually refraining from using violent approaches to discipline children such as corporal punishment, buying, use of abusive language and labeling to using alternative positive disciplines. Not only that but also teachers and school management are encouraging girls and boys to report acts of violence that are to happen or have happened for timely and appropriate support. In addition, through this approach, SC in collaboration with community and school-based structures has supported the construction of age, disability and gender appropriate School Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (SWASH) facilities, knowledge and practices. Because of menstrual hygiene support, more girls are staying in school and learn during menstruation. Besides, there are promising signs for the government in adopting the SWASH Model.
Digital Learning: Through this innovative approach, teachers and students have had access to digitized teaching and learning materials as well as materials to improve their social and emotional wellbeing. Increased use of digital platforms as innovative teaching and learning tools with the following resultant outcome: increased pass rates among poorly performing schools in refugee camps from 50% to 80%.
Life Skills for Success (LSS): In partnership with the National Microfinance Bank (NMB) and NMB Foundation, SAVE THE CHILDREN TANZANIA uses LSS among other approaches to equip youths with skills for entrepreneurship and wage employment through Skills for Entrepreneurship and Employment (SEED) Programme.
Through our current education programmes we have achieved the following;
Successfully supported 13,249 caregivers/parents of 12,673 zero- to six-year-old children adopt target behaviours, including reading books, telling stories, singing songs, playing games, and taking children outside. As a result, 81% of caregivers in project areas at Endline adopted at least 60% of the targeted behaviours, compared to 64% at Midline and 1% at Baseline.
Successfully supported parents and caregivers to be responsible on supporting their children learning at home. At endline 65% of parents and caregivers in project areas demonstrated reading stories with/for their children compared to 52% in control and 78% report telling stories to their children compared to 67% in control.
SAVE THE CHILDREN TANZANIA encouraged local leaders to expand their thinking on ECD. This led to the prioritization of ECD in community initiatives, planning, and budgeting such that at Endline 71% of villages integrated ECD into development plans compared to 0% at baseline.
In emergencies, SAVE THE CHILDREN TANZANIA has been supporting refugee children and students to access education and learning opportunities since 2017.The organization has been strengthening teaching competencies of refugee teachers through face- to-face training and digital platforms to enhance effective teaching and children’s learning. Through digital platforms 240 teachers have had access to digitized curricula and textbooks of countries of origin that could otherwise not have been available due to difficulties of accessing such materials from Burundi and DRC. In addition, 5163 students from 5 primary schools (4 Nduta, 1 Nyarugusu) and 2 Idea Box Centres have had access to such platforms thereby motivating them to stay in school and learn. In addition, SAVE THE CHILDREN TANZANIA also offers integrated child protection activities with ECCD activities for both Burundian and Congolese populations 8 Child Friendly Spaces (5 Nyarugusu, 3 Nduta). To achieve this, SAVE THE CHILDREN TANZANIA has been distributing scholastics and WASH materials to students and schools; Conducting safe back to school campaigns; training teachers on learner centered approaches; Provide PSS to teachers, children and parents; Training parents on responsive parenting, parenting without violence and preparation of learning materials; Conduct meetings with community leaders on child rights and education.
SAVE THE CHILDREN TANZANIA has successfully achieved the following through recent assessment conducted in the program location.
Increased Access to Inclusive Learning Opportunities: The program successfully expanded access to learning activities, with 68% of children reporting regular attendance at Child-Friendly Spaces (CFS) and school activities.
Enhanced Quality of Education: Approximately 93% of children reported access to educational materials, and 85% expressed satisfaction with their quality. While satisfaction was slightly higher among girls (51%) than boys (43%).
Improved Child Protection and Psychosocial Resilience: Psychosocial support services achieved high satisfaction, with 90% of children reporting satisfaction and 98% noting emotional well-being improvements for the past two years.
Enhanced Safety for Children: A significant 99% of children and caregivers felt safe within CFS and school environments, and 96% of children were confident in using protection reporting mechanisms.