Mobile blackboards, lap desks: Crucial teaching aids in under resourced schools

ALOYCE NDELEIO
Dar es Salaam

Various programmes including the Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP)have been developed with the aim of achieving the Millennium Development Goal on Education for All by 2015 and making education more accessible despite facing some challenges especially when it comes to the learning environment..


A Tigo official shows Themi Primary School pupils on how to effectively use the donated lap desks in Arusha recently.

The most important of all challenges include insufficient number of classrooms, however, the solution has been to build as many primary schools in order to make sure all children who reach compulsory school going age could be admitted.

Another challenge faced in such a programme is insufficient furniture including desks even the chalkboard hence creating a difficult teaching and learning environment. Moreover, some schools lack even sufficient reference books. In such a case the situation in some schools is appalling.

However, in such a situation, the private sector has a role to play. Companies and business entities can come in handy in rescuing the future generation from an appalling environment, giving them hope and the zeal to continue pursuing their studies.

Mobile blackboard and lap desks

In a move to combat and rescuing the school children from such an appalling situation various institutions have joined force in the campaign in a move that can be commended as a public-private partnership in which 1000 lap desks were donated to two primary schools in Arusha recently by Tigo.

The donation was accompanied by a supplementary personal donation of mobile blackboards on behalf of Christina and Max Stenbeck, major shareholders of Millicom International Cellular (MIC), the holding company of Tigo Tanzania.

Eleven mobile blackboards were donated to the primary schools to assist teachers in need of the tools to improve education in their regions. As an added bonus, these teachers will be able to use the mobile blackboards in different environments, even outside the classrooms, boosting the morale of the students and introducing new and fun ways for children to learn.

The mobile blackboards make a perfect synergy with the lap desk donation done by Tigo, as they will both provide a mobile tool for the improvement of Tanzania痴 education. 的t is only proper for Tigo, a company that provides mobility to its customers, to help Tanzania痴 education in a mobile fashion Christina Stenbeck mentioned during a phone interview while she continues her visit to other countries where Tigo operates in Africa and Latin America.

By making this donation, Tigo continues to invest in Tanzania痴 education. This will also help in easing the teaching environment for teachers that experience challenges at the schools.

Tigo is continuing to support education by donating lap desks which are used as teaching aids for children, helping them to learn the alphabet, different shapes, mathematics time tables and the different colours, even in adverse conditions where they lack desks to perform their school duties. This is continuing to campaign to donate as part of an initiative to help education.

The company's representative in Arusha, Gaudens Mushi, said that he hoped that the lap desks would be seen as educational tools that would help children to learn more even when they are not at school.

“It is our obligation to contribute as much as we can to Tanzanian children痴 education and, for this reason, we decided to donate the lap desks, along with the Stenbeck痴 personal donation of mobile blackboards,he said.

The Arusha event is the second one by the private sector in education as when it started in Dar es Salaam, early this year, in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Dar es Salaam North, 1,000 lap-desks and chairs to Misewe Primary School of in Ilala Municipality in Dar es Salaam.

So long as the primary education is the most vital in a child痴 life and in Tanzania many schools, currently lacks the basic teaching aids, both institutions stated that they have decided to step in and help the country's future leaders.

A crucial teaching aids

Since lap-desk are designed ergonomically to suit the needs of the children, they can use them
sitting on the floor with their legs crossed or sitting on a chair while on the other hand it has a wing so that they can carry them easily.

As far as many schools have little or no furniture lap-desks as a substitute for a conventional desk, they gives the pupils appropriate conditions for learning such skills and accomplishments as reading and writing, arithmetic, mathematics, drawing, painting, etc.

Being the most important teaching aid lap desks have space to put a notebook and a book side by side, it helps children to learn, both in the classroom and while at home doing homework and other exercises.

Such tool represents valuable support to the school community in general and to the pupils in particular whilst creating difference spheres in learning conditions in particular suffice to say it improves the quality of education.

It is suggested by vision therapists that students using a lap desk stabilize material at the appropriate working distance from their eyes. The 20-degree tilt provided by the lap desk improves postural control of the entire body and aligns the eyes with the material more easily.

This makes focusing, eye movements and eye teaming more comfortable and efficient. The lap desk is portable and can go with the child as s/he sits on the floor or bed, or travels in the car. Having her or his own lap desk can be a good motivator for doing homework...and its fun!

On the other hand among the most important of all teaching aids used by teachers the mobile chalkboard surpasses all especially in impoverished environment where buildings' wall doesn't provides as suitable blackboard.

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