SEQUIP schools in Geita ready for new academic year

GEITA: EIGHT new public schools built under the Secondary Education Quality Improvement Project (SEQUIP) in the Geita region are ready to start enrolling Form One students for the new academic year.

Geita Regional Secondary Education Officer, Mr Anthony Mtweve, told the ‘Daily News’ on Monday, in an exclusive interview, that the region is well-prepared for the upcoming academic year.

Mr Mtweve stated that all eight schools have been facilitated and their construction is over 90 per cent complete. Out of these, seven are ward schools, while one is a regional boarding school.

“We expect the regional boarding school to start accepting students by January 15th, 2024. Our main motivation is to ensure that all students attend school, even if they lack uniforms.

“Our strategy is that every child should go to school, no matter the circumstances. If a parent plans to buy school uniforms, we need to see their child at school. The most important thing is for the child to have a notebook and a pen.

“We have sufficient classrooms for all the classes, although they may not be enough for an average of 45 students. Instead, we have balanced the classrooms to accommodate an average of 50 students per class.”

Mr Mtweve added that the seven ward schools have been allocated a budget of 4 billion Tanzanian shillings for project implementation, while the regional boarding school will also cost a budget of 4bn/-.

He further stated that the Geita region expects to register 52,568 Form One students who passed the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) in 2023.

“In this new academic year, we also expect to enroll approximately 108,385 primary school pupils. However, as of last Friday, only 43,514 pupils had reported to school, which is equal to 40 per cent.

“For kindergarten, we expect to enroll 98,362 children. As of last Friday, about 61,627 children were enrolled, which is 63 per cent of the targeted enrollment.”