Tanzania: National tests looming in refugee camps

The hope of taking national tests is growing among students in refugee camps in Tanzania. A teachers team has just finished choosing these end-of-cycle and general humanities tests.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

About twenty teachers from the final classes in the Nduta and Nyarugusu refugee camps have just spent two weeks in a session choosing the exam’s questions standing for “NECTA”, the national test, which will have to be taken by 9th grade students for the end of the basic cycle, finalists in general humanities and candidates for Normale IV.

The internment took place in the capital of the Kasulu district in the Kigoma region in northwestern Tanzania where the two camps are located. They were supervised by the Tanzanian Ministry of Education, UNICEF and UNHCR.

These UN agencies and the Tanzanian government took matters into their own hands when Burundi refused to send national tests to the refugee camps. That was in 2016.

However, the refugee camps continue to follow the Burundian educational program. And the test chosen and administered in the camps is recognized by Tanzania, as are the resulting diplomas.

Even though the dates for these tests are not yet known, hope is growing among the students who continue to revise and do mock exams or standard tests.

Among parents and educators, satisfaction is also remarkable because it has been more than a year since such national tests have been administered, “for reasons that only Tanzania knows,” according to a teacher from the Nduta camp.

“Imagine that for this school year, we do not have an 11th grade class because the students should first have found the 9th grade test to be guided…! So, this is good news for us,” he adds.

In the Nyarugusu and Nduta camps, two classes will take these national exams.

It should be remembered here that these are only students, Burundian refugees who do not take the national tests regularly. Among their neighbors of Congolese origin, this delay is not noticeable.

Even if there is hope and enthusiasm, there is also a kind of discouragement for the young people who have just spent a whole year at home.

“Some have returned to the country, others got married, especially for the girls while others have left the camp to seek life elsewhere,” say parents in the Nyarugusu camp.

Parents, students and educators all agree to ask Tanzania and the UNHCR to do everything possible to no longer jeopardize the future of these young people.

Tanzania currently has more than 104,000 Burundian refugees according to UNHCR data as of October 31, 2024.

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Students and schoolchildren return from school at the Burundian refugee camp in Nduta (SOS Médias Burundi)