Digital Empowerment in Tanzania: AHEAD, Inc. Launches Computer Lab at Maruku Secondary School

The Problem

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the world to the depth of the socio-economic inequalities in our societies. Across the globe, students without technological resources at home found themselves using cell phones, televisions, and radios to continue learning and student learning in many locals was choked. We accept that in today’s technology-driven world, access to computer skills training is essential for youth empowerment and economic advancement. In Tanzania, as in most other developing countries, education is highly dependent on teachers. Unfortunately, the lack of ICT access, ICT trained teachers and limited ICT skills are identified as a major challenge to introduce technology into schools. The Maruku Secondary School (MSS) in Maruku, Tanzania lacks the necessary electronic technology (e-technology) access to train and enhance teaching, and enhance the education of their students, precluding greater opportunity for their students once completing their secondary education. With great fanfare AHEAD, Incorporated partnered with MSS opening their first every computer lab and broadband with 17 donated new Dell desk top computers in 2022. Meanwhile, MSS now educates over 950 enthusiastic and bright students annually. The lack ample computer availability influences lesson plans, precludes teacher training in ICT, and serves as the primary barrier to the broader introduction of technology into the school. Furthermore, it strands greater student achievement and opportunities through e-learning and mastering computer competencies.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.               ~Nelson Mandela 

The Solution

Our solution is to increase intellectual and economic growth in Maruku and in Tanzania by expanding the computer lab from 17 existing desktop computers to 217 computers in total. This will strengthen the ability for the educators and administrators with ICT based teaching skills, affording them more robust lessons, and improving their ability to teach and reach more students. It will strengthen the student access to e-learning and widen access to information and lessons available on the world-wide web. It will promote more in-depth, enthusiastic, and rigorous study, greater intellectual curiosity, widen educational resources and economic opportunities, draw more students who wish to matriculate to MSS and graduate, while promoting classroom collaboration, teamwork, and critical thinking-all skills necessary for success. 

Moreover, it will improve (1-3):

• intellectual fitness, and well being 
• academic achievement
• healthy life choices and life styles 
• positive body-image perceptions
• self-esteem and confidence
• enhanced cognition
• improved school retention 
• favorable perceptions of school experiences
• perceptions of family and teacher/community support 
• post-graduate education and career options and choices 
• economic prosperity as countries with more developed digital infrastructure tend to have higher living standards. 
• long-term economic prospects of the Kagena Regiom and Tanzania by ensuring that future generations are prepared to thrive in a digital economy.

1. World Bank. “World Development Indicators”

2. International Telecommunication Union (ITU). “Measuring the Information Society Report”

3. African Union. “Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020-2030)”

Our Goal

Our goal is to provide enhancement of the existing computer lab as a multi-centered platform that through the gain basic computer literacy and word processing proficiency, with access to a non-internet dependent networked server with books, study guides, and a wide range of digital materials this will help develop successful healthy and intellectually rich students, who value academic success, all aligned and in conjunction with the vision and goals of the Maruku Secondary School.

“Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rests the cornerstones of freedom, democracy, and sustainable human development. 

~Kofi Annan    

Long-Term Impact/Goals

• To design a sustainable and reproducible multipronged program centered on academic achievement, school matriculation and retention, and healthy life choices.
• Future vision for the program
  • Renovate /expand the existing computer lab
  • Expand the computer program at MSS to provide computers for each student/teacher/administrator while they matriculate to or work at MSS
  • Purchase a Rachel Server (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education & Learning Server)
    • first large version of the offline educational server
    • Launched in Sierra Leona in 2009, it is being used in Arusha,  Tanzania and over 50 countries world-wide
    • A non-internet dependent, free content library of downloadable websites with over 100 teaching modules that can house  500GB of information
    • Up to 50 computers within a 150-foot radius can access one Rachel terminal.
• Serial on-campus face-to-face Rachel – Teacher training seminars
  • Eventually purchase enough Rachel Servers to support over 950 computers at MSS
  • Create a computer repair curriculum with a resolute educator(s) and ample support supplies necessary to support, sustain and grow this MSS technical training service line
  • Expand campus wide solar energy to facilitate all energy needs of an e-learning campus
  • Expand IT training course curriculum 
  • Coding classes all grades all students
  • Options for all students who wish to study STEM, to be able to do so 
  • Through the ICT program, over the next decade, impact over 100 teachers and 10,000 students and their families, who will be able to develop their own employment through the mastered digital literacy skills, creating capacity and opportunity in Maruku, Bukoba, and throughout Tanzania and the globe
  • Advance future Maruku Secondary School capacity development
    • Expansion of the physical plant/student population/ faculty population
    • Insure all children have annual and ample school supplies, uniforms.
    • Develop an agriculture education program with a functioning school farm, water catchment system, well water, water storage, irrigation system, all to eliminate water and food insecurity, train future farmers, and afford a potential revenue 
    • Establish a MSS Food and Clothing Bank for the students and community
    • Establish universal free dental care, campus dental clinic