Parent actively, vote peacefully as parents

DAR ES SALAAM: DEAR Parents, let us start with a gentle reminder: Your child’s school bag is not a campaign billboard, their lunchbox is not for storing campaign flyers, and no, your teenager’s “special talent” for dancing is not needed at political rallies this term. What is needed? Their full-time job as a student.

Now that schools have reopened across the country, the real campaign every parent should be invested in is Team Education 2025. This is the campaign with no slogans, no convoy dust, but the highest stakes: your child’s future.

Again, let us face it, our kids are clever. This time when they come home saying, “Mama, I was selected to sing at the honourable’s campaign rally,” or “Baba, I’m just helping organise chairs at the rally after school…”—it might sound innocent, even cute. But let us not be fooled.

Behind that smile might be a student slipping through the cracks of school attendance, academic discipline and personal safety.

As parents and guardians, you are the first line of defence. Be vigilant. Check their books. Know their timetable. Ask questions like, “What did you learn today?” and not just “Ulienda shule?” because, trust me, “kuenda” and “kusoma” are not always the same.

To our dedicated teachers—yes, we know you are already juggling a lot. But this season, please put on your strictest faces and monitor your students. Especially the day-schoolers, make sure they are in class, not roaming around town in school uniforms, blending into political crowds like undercover agents. Let the only rally they attend be the morning assembly. Keep the registers tight, the gates tighter and the excuses even tighter than that.

Let students know this term counts. Because education is not on recess even if politics seem to be on every street corner.

To the youth eyeing fame as Rally Dancers and Bouncers… Please sit down. You may be tall. You may be muscular. You may have a killer dance move.

But unless you are dancing for the school drama club or guarding the school gate, your talents are misapplied at rallies.

The campaign trail is not a talent show. And more importantly, these rallies will end. What happens after the music stops? Where will you be when the last speaker leaves the stage?

Again, we all know that every campaign season attracts a unique tribe: the self-declared ‘experts in chaos’. If your mission this season is to break into shops, snatch phones or ‘represent the street’ through hooliganism-please reconsider.

Tanzanians want peace. We have worked too hard for it. And lest you forget, the Police will be out in full force, not for applause, but to keep order. If your hustle involves violence or theft, you will soon be campaigning for a mattress in a cold cell. Don’t let that be your next stop.

In a nutshell, parents, teachers and the community at large this is our collective responsibility. Campaigns will come and go, but the lessons missed, the exams failed and the futures lost may never return. So, let us keep children in classes, the crowds civil and the country safe.

Because the biggest victory this season? An educated, peaceful Tanzania.