AIRTEL Tanzania has donated books worth 16 million to eight Dar es Salaam secondary schools.

The schools that have benefited from the support are Al-Haramain Seminary, Whitelake, Mwambao, Hondogo B, Misitu, Yemen, Yeshua and Archbishop John Sepeku Secondary Schools.

Speaking at the event held at Yemen Secondary School in Dar es Salaam over the weekend, the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS), Michael Ole Mugaya admitted that most of schools lack books, thus making the task to offer quality education quite hard.

"It is good that the donation has been done equally to secondary schools from all Dar es Salaam districts. In fact lack of books is a challenge to our government and we always call for other stakeholders to borrow a leaf and do the same or more," said Ole Mugaya Airtel Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, Hawa Bayumi said her company was concerned by lack of teaching gears in schools which impacts negatively on the quality of education.

"We have donated books that cut across all subjects such as Geography, Mathematics and Science. We believe that students will study comfortably once every student gets a book," said Ms Hawa.

Antipas Chale, Yemen Secondary School Headmaster who gave a note of appreciation on behalf of the beneficiaries said the support was a morale booster to teachers and students.

Airtel Tanzania is running the initiative under the theme "Shule Yetu Project" to help alleviate shortage of teaching aids in schools. Since the beginning of the project, the company has provided teaching aids to over 1,000 primary and secondary schools.