The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has launched a-five year 'Challenge Fund' project, for rehabilitation and renovation of about 500 nursery schools in the country.
The Project, to be carried out by the government and Montessori Community of Tanzania (MCT), will spend over 50,000 US dollars for each centre, under sponsorship of the Arthur Waser Foundation.
MCT Director, Ms Sarah Kiteleja, said this recently during the organisation's annual general meeting.
Ms Kiteleja explained that the project will be covering both public and private nursery schools, in efforts to improve teaching and learning environment for babies from an early stage.
'Improvements will also involve in-office capacity building training to teachers. We need every child to be well," said the Director.
The project is set to takeoff any time after the signing of Memorandum of Understanding between MCT and the government, with the former having already submitted important documents to the latter, affirmed the Director.
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Launching the Project, Director of Primary Education in the Ministry, Mr Abdul Maulid, commended MCT for supporting the government's efforts towards improving the learning environments for babies.
He also praised MCT partners, including the Mwanza-based Amani Girls Organization that has been promoting nutrition, in a bid to develop cognitive abilities at childhood level.
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"Parents should contribute food to schools for their children. The findings show that a child loses concentration in class when the stomach is empty," he said, while insisting members of the community to stick to balanced diet, especially pregnant mothers, so as to deliver babies with smart brains.
Nutritionist for Amani Girls, Ms Margareth Cyprian, supported the motion that free education misinterpretation hinders the efforts, with majority parents skipping school feeding programmes, under the pretext that the government does everything for school children.
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Similarly, ignorance, as well as wrong beliefs in Lake Zone also appears to be barriers, especially when nutrition issues for pregnant and babies come in.
"For instance, some people believe that the breast-milk that comes out in the first week after baby delivery is dirty, completely unfit for the newborn's consumption. "We come across this through our feeding programmes we conduct in various remote areas of Mwanza, particularly Sengerema District.
We therefore intensify public education, to let people know that the first milk is more important to babies than nothing else," she said.
