BROADCASTS.com

The Millennium Development Goal for Education focuses on percentages of children in primary school, and the World Bank has subsequently expanded the concept of 'basic education' to include secondary school. The scorecards kept of these international priorities have pushed many developing countries towards emphasis on 'getting children into class.' Planners and funders have paid less attention to whether, inside the classroom, there are enough books on the desk (or any desks for that matter), posters on the wall, or teachers in the classroom. Pupils are condemned to a diet (often forced feeding) of minimal information, often in a language they don't understand, emphasizing rote learning and mere repetition of everything they are taught. Instead of growing into critical and creative citizens, pupils enter adolescence and young adulthood carrying the burdens of this mis-education's effects on their mental and social health. Using Tanzania as his prime example, including research carried out by his organization, Richard Mabala will discuss how and why Tanzanian education, once in the forefront of innovation in the 1960s and 70s, has declined to its current state, and how alternative educational methods can be used to remedy the situation. Richard Mabala was born British, and after graduating as a teacher went as a volunteer to Tanzania where he fell in love with the country. He became a Tanzanian citizen and has taught there in secondary schools, teacher colleges and the university of Dar es Salaam. Moving from academics to activism, he became a founding member of several of Tanzania's most influential NGOs for gender and education. He also worked eight years with UNICEF, in Tanzania, Ethiopia, and its regional offices, as an advisor on programs for adolescents. Returning to Tanzania, he joined with two young people to set up and work in TAMASHA, a youth participatory development centre based in Arusha. Mabala is also a writer of children' More information on the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council can be found here.