CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Cuban soft’ teaching project for illiterates underway in Tanzania

Tanzania, February 17, 2010. A new ray of hope is in the horizon for people who have never gone to school as a new teaching method is underway.

A 28bn/- project being executed jointly between Tanzania and Cuba that offers the illiterates a chance to learn the ‘soft’ way, will start in four regions of Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Ruvuma and Mwanza.

The project dubbed ‘Yes I Can’ which initially started in 2008 at low level uses various teaching methods together with the alternative use of radio and television.

“We are very excited about this unique project that will be using audio visual equipment to teach people how to read, write and count,” the Principal Education Officer in the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, Mr. Valentino Gange, said.

Mr. Gange told the ‘Sunday News’ that through this project, which has been very effective elsewhere like Cuba which has an illiteracy rate of less than 0.8 per cent will go a long way to reducing the rather alarming 32 per cent that Tanzania currently has.

Mr. Gange said that the project aims to revive adult education to levels seen during the Father of the Nation’s days and lays emphasis on the stipulations of the CCM manifesto of 2005.

He explained that the mode of instruction will be by video in Kiswahili whereby a diagnostic study has already been conducted to find out which content is required that befits the people who will be educated.

“The lessons will be able to address problems of daily lives of the people, getting educated basically on gender issues, leadership, nutrition, livestock keeping and the like,” he explained.

He said that people will be taught from what they already know like why people trading in market places do so in very dirty environments and often get very little profit. Presently scripts of 65 lessons have already been prepared and actors will soon start being trained and later be filmed in Cuba on how best to drive the message home.

Each lesson will have duration of 30 minutes and 15 others for discussion of the lessons and the lessons will be complete in three months whereby a person will then have learnt how to write, read, count and have other skills.

Mr. Gange said that a class is estimated to have at least 30 students for effective learning though the pilot projects will give more accurate answers especially in areas where electricity is a problem. The Literacy Expert Coordinator of Cuba Educational Assistance in Tanzania, Mr. Jorge Aguilera Rodriquez, said that the only reason why it worked in Cuba was because there was political will and of the people.

“This easy model of eradicating illiteracy in mass and speed is only possible if everyone in the community plays a role and the government ensures this by making it a national campaign,” he said.

He emphasized on the need for the government, local governments and the general community to be sensitized so that everyone is convinced that the project is for the people because acceptance is paramount.

Mr. Rodriquez said that he and his team of three experts were currently completing a facilitators’ handbook where anyone can be one without being a professional teacher, a learners’ wordbook and video lessons.

He voiced that it would do the country good if the government could knock on the doors of the private sector and pull them into the project especially when considering that there is no way of wiping out poverty when base of society is illiterate.(Cubaminrex- Embacuba Tanzania)

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