Scholarships

Kamitei provides individual scholarships to children who can not afford to pay for their own education. The scholarships typically cover a number of years to ensure that the education leads to a point where the individual has good job prospects, such as the completion of a secondary vocational degree.

The Scholarships Program aims to grant between 5-10 scholarships each year to selected students. We have two different types of scholarships:

• Community-sponsored scholarships for vocational training (duration 1 or 2 years, with the goal of learning a trade and providing the prospect of a decent job with stable income);
• Eagle Scholarship program (duration up to 8 years, with the goal of completing a university degree for exceptional students with leadership potential).

Kamitei has decided to grant individual scholarships to individuals as well as assist communities as a whole because it believes that a community will eventually benefit from having well educated and employed individuals in their midst. They can for example act as a role model for others in the community and become (in)formal community leaders.

Facts & Figures

Number of community scholarships granted to date: 40 (a number still pending).

Number of Eagle scholarships granted to date: 50 (5 more planned for 2017).

Teacher Training & Support

Since the quality of teachers and their teaching skills is a very important factor in the overall quality of education, Kamitei decided to offer training for teachers of the communities it works with. Kamitei held its first teacher training workshops in 2004.

Our approach for teacher training and coaching for 2013 is much more intensive than we have used in the past. Until 2012, we did a few visitations per year and 2-3 workshops. We were ultimately unsatisfied with the results of these activities. Our experience was that whilst some teachers picked up on their performance, many got stuck in their old ways of teaching. Also, it didn’t materially change teacher attendance / motivation, which is still mediocre in a number of cases (the latter has been identified by several studies as a key issue for primary education in rural Tanzania).

With the recruitment of Bill Basil. a professional teacher from Tanzania, as Field Education Officer, training the 70+ teachers and maintaining continuous contact with teachers and the communities has become a full time job. This has become the most time consuming activity for Kamitie, but we think that is well worth it.