Tanzania had hardly won any international secondary schools essay competition award before 2002. But things started to change gradually thereafter when officials from the Ministry of Education and Culture looked at reasons behind the trend and sought remedy measures.
After a thorough study of the problem, Grace Naburi, 55, an official in the ministry drew a plan and forwarded it to the Permanent Secretary for scrutiny and action. The following year Tanzania become third in a East Africa Essay Competition for Secondary chools, and the rest is history.
A pusher for things to happen or change as she describes herself, Grace had worked for the Tanzania Family Planning Association (UMATI) community based youth programmes for four years before calling it quits. At UMATI she worked for a reproductive health rights programme for youth in colleges, universities and national service.
“At that time (1992-1996) there was an out cry from girls that they were being abused in universities at the national services camps, so we set up a peer counseling and common rooms at the University of Dar es salaam. These rooms were equipped with all relevant materials on gender and featured educative television programs,” she said.
It was Grace’s initiation that led to the establishment of these common rooms, which did not only provide counseling on gender based violence, but also provided contraception information and services as well as information on HIV/AIDS. In her position at UMATI, Grace was able to advice parents and guardians on any gender related problems.
“I was able to encourage parents who felt that their daughters had lost everything when they fell pregnant – we encouraged parents to take their children to private schools after giving birth and for those who could not afford to do so, we encouraged them to join adult education, or vocational training centres” she says. Grace provided them with guidance on how they could access various alternative education opportunities, and sometimes connected them to the placements.
In 1996, she moved to the ministry of education to continue work of dealing with young people. Between 1996 and 2000, Grace worked at the commissioner of education office as a project manager and collaborated with others in establishment of gender desk as part of government resolve to mainstreaming gender in the public service. The project focused on all gender related issues in the ministry.
The project organised seminars and training sessions with various key players in the ministry including curriculum specialist, mainly to put more emphasis on gender mainstreaming in the curriculum and introduced gender segregate in the education sector. Grace, a single mother of two children is currently the Principal Education Officer at the Ministry, who is also known as a negotiator.
Her main task is coordinating international relation on education matters between Tanzania and other countries and international organization. “Apart from working with the Ministry of Education, I also work closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation mostly on matters that need negotiation,” she said. She has held the position for nine years and enjoy it, She added.
She says her job is pinned with serious responsibilities and she refers to negotiating skills as an art. “Negotiation is an art since one does not know what would come out of any talk and if it will favor your country or not,” she said. Her job involves a lot of reading and doing research, so she says she spends most of the time reading. On how she reached the position of Principal Education Officer, she says her experience is what lifted her up in the ladder.
“I have been a teacher for 10 years, I taught Weruweru, Kilakala and Solomon Mahlangu secondary schools before joining UMATI. So I have climbed through the ranks to be where I am,” she said. As we are about to clinch 50 years of country independence, Grace says the education sector has grown. She says that the number of schools has increased; there is enough room to accommodate all those who could not go to school. She admit that way back it was the brightest that went to school, but now everybody has an opportunity to learn.
“The Ministry of education has made sure that there are enough schools for everyone. I remember while I was a teachers I knew all the head teachers of most secondary schools because they were few but today, there are so many schools it is hard to keep up,” she said. However she is advising parents to be realistic and not force their children to go for certain levels of education. “Parents are making mistakes by thinking that every child must reach university, even though the child has some other interest and talents,” she says.
“One does not need to go to university to be successful, parents should try to identify talents of their children and try to nurture them. We have seen people with ordinary education doing wonders. And we have seen professors who are not successful in life. The most important thing is to know where one belongs,” she said.
She calls on the government and other stakeholders to help people identify and be able to nurture their talents, those of family members and the community at large. As a career woman she is mostly disappointed that her section doesn’t have a pool of negotiators. “We should have negotiation unit that is filled with negotiators,” she proposed. On her future plans, she had this to say; “I have not thought of what I want to do in the future.
I cant say I will go to politics, although when I was young I was an active member of TANU Youth League,” she said. Grace has high inspiration from the late Mwalimu Nyerere. She says whatever he aspired is what is carrying us now. “I feel lucky to be where I am today, and I call myself the rural lucky woman because where I come from, there are no many educated people or wealthy people,” she says.
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