Tanzania: Weaving Creative Writing Into Secondary Education

Arusha — At a remote village beneath the acacia woodlands in Monduli District, Arusha Region young writers are being groomed.

One can as well say potential journalists are being identified among the students and enabled to grasp the elementary skills.

It is a sort of innovation at Tumaini Senior Secondary School, one of the best performing education institutions in Arusha Region and the country as a whole.

The brain behind teaching the students writing skills is Ms Eliza Allison, a volunteer from the United States and now technically a member of the academic staff.

The initiative has generated some interest among education stakeholders in the area for the way writing skills have been blended in the routine lessons.

It may be too early but the school is already considered a future fountain for the new media practitioners for Tanzania in the future.

That is given efforts underway in teaching writing skills and enthusiasm shown by the young learners towards journalism/writing lessons.

Is the school which opened only five years ago (in 2016) teaching journalism or just writing for pleasure? One may ask.

“I think it is both,” insists Ms Eliza, saying besides teaching essay writing as part of their normal lessons, they are taught writing as a career.

Writing is taught under what she calls Project Based Learning (PBL) a new paradigm of teaching to get life skills; not necessarily for the examination.

This is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world situations and by applying real world knowledge and skills.

Within PBL is what she calls expository writing; that is non-fiction writing about the real world, repeated assignments would improve their skills.

Expository writing would expose them to other techniques as well; doing research on what to write about, interviewing, drafting and preparing a publication.

“They are proud to make writing interesting and loaded with information they are interested to read about,” she told The Citizen in an interview.

Ms Eliza said while PBL or project based learning was not far from the Tanzania education curriculum, she is convinced teaching of journalism was taking root.

The writing class is targeting mainly students in Form III, not too close to doing their National Form Four examinations and not too new to the school.

“They are interested in journalism. Some will definitely become journalists,” said Ms Eliza as she took this reporter around the school premises.

Among those interested is a 17-year old Alphonce John from Kondoa and now in Form IV. He aspires to be a journalist, especially in sports reporting.

Although he is studying a combination (PGM) which many consider to be miles away from literary works like journalism, his dreams remain focused on the latter.

“I like to read newspapers. I am more interested in becoming a journalist,” he said. He went through writing skills learning when he was in Form Three last year.

Another Forum Four student Rodrick Ayubu said although he was aspiring to be a mechanical engineer, journalism was his second option.

“I am interested to file information to the news media and see how people react after it is published or announced,” he pointed out.

In teaching writing skills,the students with the support of the teachers, have prepared the first edition of the school magazine loaded with different articles and photos.

The inaugural edition of the 100-page ‘Tumaini Home of Talents’ has been in circulation for months and does not seem to be the product of the beginners.

Eliza is fully attached to the programme. She is guiding the students through the writing process while one Mr Chanza Simuzingili assists in designs.

The volunteer (Elliza) from Hartford city near Boston in the US is confident that the school will in the long run produce journalists

Incidentally, The Citizen, a daily newspaper published by Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL), is used as one of the training platforms.

For Eliza and fellow teachers (they are about 30), it is not the zeal to grasp the writing skills that they bank for the success of the project.

The performance of the science and technology-biased school, literally in the midst of thorny acacia trees, in the national examinations has been impressive.

In the National Form Four Exams in 2019, it emerged the first in Monduli District, the 12th in Arusha and the 159th nationally among 4,000 plus secondary schools.

Ms Digna Mallya is one of the founders of the school in 2016 when it started with 45 students in Form One. The first batch graduated in 2019.

“The owner of the school has invested heavily in infrastructure, ICT and in human resources,” she said in an interview.

With a total of 260 students and 30 teaching staff, the school has one of the best teacher/student ratios of 1:8 recommended by education experts.

By Citizen.