Project background
In Tanzania, getting a quality education that sets you up for life is out of reach for millions of people.
Children aren’t coming out of primary school with the skills they need and classrooms are overcrowded, with up to 49 students per teacher. Most learning is done through rote and it’s widely known that this isn’t an effective way to learn. Children have to pass an exam to complete primary school and there’s no option to retake that exam, so a failed exam means no chance at secondary education.
If a young person reaches secondary school, the problems continue. The teaching language switches from Swahili to English, any young person who can’t quickly grasp English gets left behind. Teachers with the right training are hard to come by, and students can go months without subject specialists to teach them, leading to many students failing exams.
Tanzania needs to create 800,000 jobs every year, but youth don’t have the skills the job market needs. Tanzania’s progress depends on empowering and educating youth. The country needs innovative teaching methods, inspiring teachers, and affordable options for all levels of education. This will lift families and communities out of poverty, and lay the path for Tanzania’s development.
Key project activities
Anza provided sector-specific business development services to entrepreneurs in the Education sector to help their businesses grow to the next level. These entrepreneurs aim to help solve the national challenge of access to quality education and through the success of their businesses are providing new job opportunities to Tanzanian locals.
We provided entrepreneurs with training, consulting, and affordable financing to grow their businesses through a 6-month Accelerator. Every entrepreneur received:
- Capacity Building/Consulting: tailored 1:1 support and training in key business skills
- Mentoring: matching with a professional mentor who works in-country for 1-3 months
- Technical Assistance: support from lawyers, designers, and tax advisors
- Access to Affordable Capital: opportunity for direct access to flexible, affordable loans
The Education Track provided a further four additional modules designed to suit the needs of growing education businesses. These included educational innovations product development, curriculum development and marketing your education business. The businesses we worked with covered the full education spectrum from pre-primary education to vocational and tertiary training.
Key project outcomes
- 12 entrepreneurs from 4 regions were served under the educational tract.
- Businesses on average were able to generate 3 new jobs
- Businesses on average were able to reach 12,000 people within the year of attending the programme
- Businesses on average grew by 10% within the programme and by 20% within the year of attending the programme.
Community involvement
We worked with;
Local entrepreneurs: We believe that local entrepreneurs are the ones who identify the social challenges in Tanzania, and the solutions. Several education businesses were invited to join the Education Track profiles, these included; DataSky Training College, Nuru Academy, Mtabe Innovations, Smartcore Enterprises, Senda Success, Ajuaye Minja, First Miracle Adult School, Ideal Academy, High Marks Academy, Shulesoft, MITZ Group, Rise and Shine Academy, Silverleaf Academy.
Government (Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, Local Government Agencies, Business formalisation Agencies): These facilitate ease of doing business for the sector through offering direct support to businesses especially with attainment of all required certifications and clearances, create a favourable tax code for social enterprises and provide experts to train and/or mentor entrepreneurs on various issues related to regulations.
Private Sector (Telecos, Payment aggregators etc): These offer mobile payments solutions, technology transfers and access to their database of would be clients for the entrepreneurs.
Funders (angels, VCs,Pes, Donors, Grantors, Banks, MFIs etc): These appeared as mentors in the program, offered their investment policies to the entrepreneurs to allow the later to model their programs after what financiers are looking for and shared entrepreneurs profiles to their networks of investors and funders.
Media Houses: These acted as Innovation evangelists promoting the entrepreneurs through news reporting.
Global Accelerator Learning Initiative (GALI): Anza contributes programme data to GALI for programme impact learning.
What's next?
Access to vital products and services is a key challenge in Tanzania. Anza believes that by supporting the growth of businesses, we will see development in key social sectors that need to develop in order to serve the needs of the growing population. Anza has identified five key sectors to focus our efforts in; renewable energy, education, health, agriculture, water, hygiene and sanitation (wash) and financial inclusion.
We have further developed additional tracks that has allowed us to support entrepreneurs in these sectors at a deeper level. We see the overlap for these businesses too. For the youth of Tanzania to develop, we need them to access good education, in schools powered by renewable energy. They must have reliable and affordable access to food, and have the safety of a health insurance offering that is there when they need it.
The programme will continue to be offered by Anza in partnership with the stakeholders mentioned under 4 above, and it has since been scaled to support entrepreneurs in 12 regions in Tanzania and in 2020 over 302 entrepreneurs were supported.
Project Background
In Tanzania, getting a quality education is out of reach for millions of people. Lacking this education can have an incredible impact on the standard individual's adult life.
Children aren’t coming out of primary school with the skills they need; classrooms are overcrowded, with up to 49 students for every teacher. Most learning is done through rote and it’s widely accepted that this is an ineffectual way to learn. Children in Tanzania even have to pass an exam to complete primary school, which there’s no option to retake, so a failed exam means no chance at secondary education.
The problems continue even at secondary school; the teaching language switches from Swahili to English, any young person who can’t quickly grasp English gets left behind. Teachers with the right training are hard to come by, and students can go months without subject specialists to teach them, leading to many students failing exams.
Tanzania needs to create 800,000 jobs every year, but youth just don’t have the skills the job market needs. Tanzania’s progress depends on empowering and educating their youth. The country needs innovative teaching methods, inspiring teachers, and affordable options for all levels of education. Access to quality education and vocational training will lift families and communities out of poverty, and lay the path for Tanzania’s development.
Anza wants to solve the national challenge of access to quality education by providing sector-specific business development services to education entrepreneurs so they can grow to the next level and create new job opportunities.
Project Overview
Through this project, Anza will provide entrepreneurs with training, consulting, and affordable financing to grow their businesses through an 8-month accelerator. Every entrepreneur will receive:
- Capacity Building/Consulting: tailored 1:1 support and training in key business skills
- Mentoring: matching with a professional mentor who works in-country for 1-3 months
- Technical Assistance: support from lawyers, designers, and tax advisors
- Access to Affordable Capital: opportunity for direct access to flexible, affordable loans
The Education Track will provide a further four additional modules designed to suit the needs of growing education businesses. This may include educational innovations, curriculum development and marketing an education business. The businesses we work with will cover the full education spectrum from pre-primary education to vocational and tertiary training.
Capacity building of Anza staff to deliver the Education Track is the beginning. Through the rest of the year we will market the programme, recruit a Business Development Manager to lead the delivery of the track, and launch the programme to our first 10 Education Entrepreneurs. Each entrepreneur will receive 100 hours of training to support them to develop their education business.
What's Covered in Project Cost
Project activities in year 1:
- $8400 for development of Energy Track curriculum with expert partner: 4 Modules
- $800 for 20 hours of training for Anza Business Development Advisors in delivery of the Education Track
- $800 to print materials - training workbooks
Partners and Community Involvement
We aim to work with local entrepreneurs. We believe that local entrepreneurs are the ones who identify the social challenges in Tanzania, and are best suited to create the solutions.
We’re already working with several education businesses who will be invited to join the Education Track:
DataSky Training College
With over 15 years of experience in vocational education, DataSky Systems Training Center and its team of qualified trainers provide students with skills that will shape their future both as employees and self-employed entrepreneurs. Certified under the Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA), DataSky offers a wide range of courses including tourism, which is a key part of the Tanzanian economy. Tanzania is facing a youth unemployment crisis which makes vocational training and skill development programmes such as DataSky crucial to the economic development of communities in Tanzania.
Silverleaf Academy
Silverleaf Academy is a chain of affordable, high quality private schools in Kilimanjaro and beyond, which give children from lower income households a better chance for their future. In three years they will have installed new provisions of affordable, high quality, sustainable primary education with the capacity to serve over 1,000 children from low-income families in and around the Arusha and Kilimanjaro Regions. The business model involves renting premises, deploying the iSchool digital tablet-based curriculum, and charging monthly mobile-money based tuition fees, which create a profit for reinvesting into the chain's expansion.
Nuru Academy
Nuru Academy is a preschool and lower primary school serving kids from low income earning families in Moshi, Kilimanjaro. The school started its operations in 2015 with just one class and has now outgrown its premises. The school has an excellent ratio of students to teachers, and holds a strong position in the community. Nuru is looking to expand into new premises and invest in new sports equipment and books so it can continue to provide a high quality education to its students.
Part of a Larger Strategy
Access to vital products and services is a key challenge in Tanzania. Anza believes that by supporting the growth of businesses, we will see development in key social sectors that need to develop in order to serve the needs of the growing population. Anza has identified four key sectors to focus our efforts in; renewable energy, education, health and agriculture.
We will develop additional Tracks that allow us to support entrepreneurs in these sectors at a deeper level. We’ve already started development of the Energy Track. We see the overlap for these businesses too. For the youth of Tanzania to develop, we need them to access good education, in schools powered by renewable energy. They must have reliable and affordable access to food, and have the safety of a health insurance offering that is there when they need it.