Background

St. Martin’s Girls Secondary School is located in Mbingu, a village surrounded by numerous small settlements. Ifakara, the next bigger town, is about two hours away by car. The region is agricultural in nature and the majority of inhabitants are subsistence farmers, growing maize and rice. Despite recent major efforts on the part of the government in the field of education, there are still too few schools and not enough teachers to handle the rapid growth in population taking place in Tanzania.

Although Tanzanian secondary schooling has officially been free since 2016, many parents are unable to pay for the extra expenses such as uniforms, transport, school books or accommodation near a secondary school. Moreover, secondary schools in rural areas are still scarce. Children from low-income backgrounds who cannot afford transport often have a very long walk of up to fifteen kilometres per way. What makes things even more difficult for them is the lack of time and light to do their homework in the evening.

Tradition and culture influence parents to send their sons to school rather than their daughters, who often stay at home and work or try their luck in one of the larger cities or marry young, without hope of vocational training and their own income.

The project so far

St. Martin’s Girls Secondary School is located on land belonging to the Mahenge Sisters, a Catholic order who in 2004 opened the “Mahenge Sisters Education Center”, which at first offered preparatory classes and later secondary education to locals. The influx of new students, both boys and girls, quickly demonstrated that there was considerable demand for an affordable secondary school with a quality of instruction that would give students a good chance of gaining a national diploma.

This development did not go unnoticed at the Tanzanian Ministry of Education, which in 2009 granted official recognition and registered it as a private school in the Tanzanian system. Augustina Mtanga, a local Tanzanian teacher, became principal and the school’s name was changed to St. Martin’s Girls Secondary School. The new name indicated an important change in direction for the school, namely that from that point on it would accept only girls as new students.

From the beginning, a key goal was to offer more and better schooling to local children. Thus, the school is open to girls of all religions, and the student body is equally divided between Catholic, Protestant and Muslim girls. All girls live at the boarding school during the school terms.

The compound belonging to the Mahenge Sisters is made up of a number of buildings that have gradually been built since the founding of the diocese. Besides a convent there is a health centre, a metal workshop and a carpenter’s workshop. These structures formed the basis for opening the secondary school in a building complex temporarily made available by the diocese. 

In cooperation with the EEF, the sisters succeeded in constructing the first stage of a new complex for St. Martin’s Girls Secondary School in 2019. This new infrastructure thus offers much better conditions for the education of its female students. Since the completion of the second stage of the new complex at the end of 2025, the school has boarding houses accommodating a total of 500 students as well as additional housing for teachers. The school is allowed to use surrounding fields and gardens for the cultivation of food for self-sufficiency, with the pupils helping with the work in the fields during harvest time. The school uses further land for animal husbandry and for the cultivation of products (construction timber and cocoa) that will provide the school with more funds of its own in the future.

Success and challenges

St. Martin’s Girls Secondary School enjoys an excellent reputation and demand for places is therefore high. The students’ final results are outstanding, thanks to the considerable efforts of the staff. And, since comparable schools in Tanzania are few and far between, girls come to remote Mbingu from far away to receive a high quality education. Such success has however also led to an increase in students and consequent strains on the infrastructure, resulting in a number of provisional solutions.

A boarding school offers many advantages. Girls can be supervised round the clock. They have the opportunity to study in the evening, which improves their school performance. Regular sports events as well as a balanced diet and medical care improve their health. A boarding school also offers safety and security, helping to prevent early pregnancies. These are important prerequisites for finishing secondary school successfully.

Given its remote location, it is a challenge for St. Martin's to retain its well-qualified teaching staff over the long term. Thanks to donations to the equal education fund (EEF), it has been possible to continuously build new accommodation for all teachers. As a result, the teaching staff has remained virtually unchanged. Continuing education courses also help to improve teaching methods and keep teachers highly motivated.

According to the project concept, mainly girls from the region are given access to this secondary school. The school fees are calculated to be affordable for an average family in the area. However, if a girl’s parents still cannot pay the costs in full, the project concept entails that this should not prevent her from attending secondary school. The fees for these girls are therefore reduced, which in turn reduces the income of the school. Accordingly, in order to guarantee the school’s finances and also to maintain the social aspect of the project, the EEF supports St. Martin’s with scholarships for disadvantaged local girls.

Goals

To enable girls to receive a good quality secondary education. Special conditions are offered to young women from the area whose families are unable to pay the fees, so that they can also benefit from the school’s instruction.

To improve the students’ performance by offering boarding accommodation, and to promote their physical and mental development with health care, a balanced diet and opportunities for mentoring, sports and games.

To realise our plan, which shows how the school, after completion of an investment phase, can attain financial independence and at the same time fulfil its social commitments to girls from Mbingu.

Support by the EEF

The equal education fund’s (EEF) contact to St. Martin’s Girls Secondary School arose through a Baldegg Sister. Born in Tanzania, she taught there for several years before coming to Switzerland in 1963. Once here in Switzerland, she studied at university – partly with an EEF member – and taught at a Swiss state school (gymnasium). In 2004 she returned to Tanzania to help with the founding of the Mbingu school. The equal education fund began direct support for the Mbingu project in May 2012, after obtaining a detailed picture of the school through a visit. The EEF board then decided to concentrate its support on scholarships for local girls who could not pay their school fees. For this, the financial situation of the families is checked annually as is their level of need.

A further focal point of cooperation is support for administrative matters, particularly those related to reporting. The EEF introduced a bookkeeping system and revised the way receipts were handled. These instruments allowed a clearer overview of expenditure and income. They also provided the basis for working out a plan by which the school can attain financial independence from the EEF

Martin's Girls Secondary School had to be built. This new complex was planned in three stages: in 2019, the school was able to move from the provisional building to a newly constructed facility on a site that offered sufficient space for expansion. Particularly thanks to the school's strong academic results, demand for places remained very high. In a second stage, the school management therefore constructed two double-storey dormitories as well as additional classrooms and teachers' accommodation by the end of 2025, enabling the school to educate, house and care for 500 girls. With a higher number of students, the cost per student decreases, meaning that St. Martin's, at full capacity, will be able to fully self-finance both its operations and its scholarships. The third and final stage will focus on a multipurpose hall and additional housing for teachers. The buildings and facilities constructed so far have been financed thanks to donations to the equal education fund (EEF) and a substantial contribution from the school's owner, the Mahenge Sisters’ Congregation.

Prices in Mbingu (as of May 2024)

• 1 litre of petrol:
  CHF 1.25
• 1 litre of milk:
  CHF –.75
• 1 litre of Coca-Cola:
  CHF –.75
• 1 kilo of bread:
  CHF 1.35
• 1 kilo of rice:
  CHF –.55
• 1 cinema ticket:
  CHF –.25 (Football match in a bar. There is no cinema.)
• 1 pack of cigarettes:
  CHF 3.–
• 1 bar of soap:
  CHF –.20

Sources:
World Bank, OpenFactBook, information from Augustina Mtanga, own design and calculations.