Mvumi School Trust

Mvumi Secondary School has set up a unit to educate eight pupils each year from the Buigiri School. The first eight began at Mvumi in January 2009. The numbers will gradually rise to a total of 48 during the next six years with approximately eight blind students in each year of the School. ‘Blind’ encompasses severely impaired pupils as well as wholly blind people.

Blindness in Tanzania has a direct link with poverty and malnutrition. The national percentage is around 4% of the population but in some areas it is as high as 10%, so it is a significant problem.

Education in an integrated environment

Government policy is for children with disabilities to be educated in an integrated environment. There is an outstanding primary school for blind children at Buigiri, some 30 kilometres from Mvumi. Its Head Teacher is himself totally blind. Of the 12,200 Tanzanian primary schools, Buigiri School regularly comes within the top 100 and in 2006 came sixth. However, at secondary level, provision for blind pupils is inadequate and uneven.

Partnership with the government

The Anglican Diocese of Central Tanganyika, under whose auspices DCT Mvumi Secondary School and Buigiri Schools funtion, has developed a 10-year partnership with the Ministry of Education under which eight children leaving Buigiri School each year transfer to Mvumi Secondary School, where they receive a quality education. Special Needs teachers are working with other staff to ensure the blind pupils benefit from the full life of the school.

A very generous grant from ICAP, a City of London FTSE 100 company to Mvumi School Trust has enabled The School to provide:

• two new staff houses at Mvumi for Special Needs teachers
• the ICAP Block containing study and ‘prep’ facilities, together with a staff room and storage for Braille equipment
• Braille machines
• a Braille duplicating machine
• funding for boarding and tuition for Mvumi’s blind and severely visually impaired pupils.

The Government :

• supplies two to three fully-trained Special Needs Teachers and pay their salaries
• provides all Braille paper and Braille duplicating paper
• maintains the Braille machines
• will import a whole new set of machines and a duplicator at the end of the 10-year period.

This is a wonderful step forward for both Mvumi and for the pupils who will join Mvumi. It may be that the Government will set up similar schemes elsewhere in Tanzania in the future, funds permitting. Meanwhile, the new unit puts Mvumi yet again at the forefront of top-quality and innovative education in Tanzania.