‘Guidance and counselling is a powerful tool to develop girls’ confidence and skills to deal with the challenges they face in school’, explained facilitator Buheri Richard Thomas from Morogoro Teachers Training College to the participants during a guidance and counselling training in Tanzania.

Girls are facing numerous barriers such as early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and lack of proper sanitation facilities at school that prevent them from continuing their education in Tanzania. Effectively, while 58% of male students continue to secondary education, 53% female students have the chance to do so.

Inside and outside of the classroom, teachers play a critical role in encouraging girls to join, stay, and complete their education. In Tanzania, schools have assigned guidance and counselling teachers at each school, however, they have yet to be trained to provide appropriate counselling. According to a national survey, less than 30% of teachers were trained in health and reproductive education and life skills.

Recently, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in mainland Tanzania revised and launched a comprehensive manual on Guidance, Counselling and Child Protection Guide for Schools and Teacher Colleges in Tanzania. This manual serves as a useful instrument to improve schools’ learning environment and counselling capacity.

Based on the revised guideline, UNESCO, in partnership with the Forum for African Women Educationalists Tanzania Chapter and Morogoro Teachers Training College, organized a 3-day guidance and counselling teacher training in April 2019.

Held in three districts of Tanzania - Kasulu, Ngorongoro and Sengerema, the training welcomed 150 guidance and counselling teachers, head teachers from 30 primary and 15 secondary target schools including the ward education coordinators and district community development officers. Participants had the opportunity to build their skills and knowledge on comprehensive sexuality and reproductive health education using a counselee-centred approach. They also learned about elimination of violence against women and children including corporal punishment.

Using a role-playing technique, participants compared good and bad examples of counselling and learned how to improve their listening skills by removing biases and hierarchy between teachers and students.

‘The training for counsellors and teachers provided us with the skills to support girls facing challenges every day at school. It was very useful for us to ensure we help girls in the best way possible’, said Ms Rhobi Zakaria Matinde, a secondary school teacher from the Ngorongoro district,

Community development officer from Ngornogoro District, Enock George Mwakanyamale, added: ‘Guidance and counselling has not been a focus in the various interventions in Tanzania. This was beneficial for our schools to create a safe learning environment for girls’.

As part of the training, participants developed action plans for 45 schools to continue on the efforts to secure girls’ right to education. These will be shared = with school management committees for endorsement and support.

This training was part of a project in Tanzania under the Joint Programme on Empowering Adolescent Girls and Young Women through Education in Tanzania. The project, supported by the Korea International Cooperation Agency, is set to benefit over 20,000 adolescent girls and boys in Tanzania.

Grounded in the collective commitment of three UN agencies, UNESCO, UNFPA and UN Women, the Joint Programme addresses the needs of adolescent girls, teenage mothers and young women to have quality educational opportunities through a holistic approach.

More information:

• UNESCO-UNFPA-UN Women Joint Programme
• UNESCO’s work on education and gender equality