June 2020 - Tumaini and Covid-19

Tanzania has taken a very different approach to their East African neighbors in the handling of Coronavirus. President John Magufuli announced Tanzania to be officially “Covid-free” and no official statistics regarding the virus have been released since April 29th. This has forced normal life to resume with minimal safety precautions. 

Nonetheless, Tumaini is still taking Coronavirus and the threat it poses very seriously. Many of our students live with their grandparents or parents who have underlying health issues such as HIV, diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. As a school community, we have committed to doing everything we can to maintain the safety of our students, our staff and their families. From masks, social distancing, reducing class sizes and sanitizing stations, we are honing in on every aspect of prevention in the daily routine of the students.

The school closure has also impacted the academic schedule immensely. In the Tanzanian school system, there are three very important national exams which occur at the end of; Class Seven which is equivalent to seventh grade in the US, Form Two which is equivalent to the second year of high school in the US and Form Four which is equivalent to the final year of high school. It is necessary for a student to pass each exam in order to move to the next grade. The final Form Four exam determines if the student will advance to college. Fortunately for all our students, these exam dates have been pushed back by a month to give students more time to prepare.

The Tanzanian Government has mandated that there will be no school holidays until December 18th. In addition, the school day may be extended by up to two hours per day to ensure students are able to review any work that they missed or misunderstood during distance learning. This will be challenging and upsetting for many students and  staff who will not see their families for six months.

Our hope is that the close relationships that students have with their teachers and peers will, to some extent, help them get through this unprecedented time. Many students found it difficult to be away from their school family as they typically do not spend this much time at home. Returning to school will be a reunion with friends and even a homecoming for others.

Tumaini teachers are increasing the amount of extra study lessons and co-learning opportunities, so we are optimistic that we will be able to sufficiently mitigate the possible negative academic impact that these closures have had.

This will be a very testing time for Tumaini teachers and students, but as a community we are optimistic that we will make it through the next term and be even stronger for it!