Projects and School Attendance
School records, however, provide some clues for the 1980s. The decrease in attendance and enrollment in the areas we surveyed strongly suggests that children have increased their involvement in small businesses. In Buguruni there was a 30 percent drop in primary-school enrollment from 1985 to 1988 for standards 4 through 7 (fourth through seventh grades). In Manzese there was an 11 percent drop in enrollment for the same time period for the same standards. The numbers of Buguruni students who did not complete primary school increased 3.4 times from 1980 to 1988.
Girls had a better track record than did boys with respect to school attendance and completing their studies, because they were less likely to be
as involved in their own projects. In Buguruni 99 percent of the girls enrolled attended classes, compared with the 80 percent attendance record of boys.[40]
In the urban Dar es Salaam region 47 percent of the students in primary schools were girls, according to the 1978 census (Bureau of Statistics 1982, 37). The rise in the percentage of girls attending Buguruni and Manzese schools in the 1980s is reflected in regional statistics for public primary schools in Dar es Salaam: 1981, 50 percent girls; 1982, 51 percent; 1983, 53 percent; and 1984, 52 percent girls (Bureau of Statistics 1986). By 1986 50 percent of students in schools nationwide were girls, compared with 44 percent nationwide in 1978 (Bureau of Statistics 1982, 36; Daily News, 23 June 1987)
Almost 50 percent of boys who had enrolled did not complete their schooling in 1988, compared with 32 percent of girls.In the 1980s, according to school principals, the main problem affecting children's schoolwork was their preoccupation with small projects. One headmaster commented on these new developments in school attendance:
Not long ago parents were trying to feed their children. Today, children of Dar es Salaam are feeding their parents [through their projects]…. Small businesses are the main problem facing children in school these days. Cigarette hawking, selling chicken, chips, eggs, maandazi buns, making local beer, even working at gongo [a potent and illegal alcoholic drink] bars. One girl in my school is selling beer at her mother's bar. They learn things that are beyond their age. Those who have small businesses don't do homework…. They don't care about school at all…. Some children stop going to school completely.[41]
Richard Mwambe, headmaster, Buguruni Primary School, interview by author, 22 January 1988, Buguruni, Dar es Salaam.
Teachers, parents, and students with whom we spoke agreed that school did little to prepare school leavers to cope after they finished standard 7. Schools in Buguruni and Manzese had virtually no textbooks, notebooks, charts, or even desks and chairs. Nor did they have equipment with which to teach vocational skills. They did not have hoes with which to farm as part of the Education for Self-Reliance program. At one time Uzuri Primary School in Manzese had a fruit garden, but the fruit was stolen. What children learned about domestic science they learned at home. Likewise, those who became skilled artisans went into apprenticeship with their parents, relatives, or someone else. School authorities found parents reluctant to curtail their children's engagement in projects because they were so dependent on their assistance.
Each year 50,000 students graduated from primary schools in Dar es Salaam, only to find no jobs waiting for them. Of the standard-7 leavers in Manzese, 3 percent went to vocational school (in 1985) and 12 percent went to secondary school (in 1987). In Buguruni only 6 percent of standard-7 leavers went to secondary school. The rest went directly into the ranks of the self-employed, into family businesses, or into apprenticeships.[42]
Data for Buguruni and Manzese are based on school records supplied in 1988 by the headmaster of Uzuri Primary School for all five schools in Manzese and by the headmasters of Buguruni's three primary schools: Buguruni Primary, Buguruni Moto, and Buguruni Visiwa.