Happiness is a student at Moringe Sokoine Secondary School in Monduli, Tanzania. Here, she introduces herself and sends a message to the people in America who are paying for her school fees. 2007. / About the scholarship (pdf)

2008 update

In this update, Happiness has grown out of the timid first-year secondary student that we met in the above message. With a bit more confidence, she tells us about her problems at school, what she’s going to do to overcome them, and what she hopes to do when she’s older.

Martin’s scholarship

The scholarship that supports Happiness is called the Martin Msseemmaa Memorial Scholarship Fund. It is in honor of Martin’s lifelong dedication to helping children achieve their potential. Click on the image at left to download the two-page brochure if you would like to learn more about my father’s memorial.

– Daudi Msseemmaa

2010 update: Exam results

Happiness finished her fourth year of secondary school and did well in her grades. However she fared poorly on the all-important national exams. Happiness got a Division IV with no principal passes, which is not good enough to continue to A-level. Her family has decided to do what it takes to fund her to repeat Form 4 (a very common decision) and retake the exam late in 2010. It’s a disappointing end to her scholarship, but there’s hope. Many of the students in Tanzanian universities today had to retake the Form 4 exam in the difficult system.

Her classmates’
performance:

Division I       0 students

Division II     6

Division III   18

Division IV    68

Failed            1

Understanding the system

The Tanzanian exam system ranks students into groupings based on their performance on national exams.

Division I is the best, and many of them will get government sponsorship to go on in their education.

Division II will give students many options for where to go next.

Division III is good, but it may be difficult to get into the best schools.

Division IV is nominally passing, but it’s not good enough for most to go on to the next level.

Fail is given to the worst performers.

School performance:

Even with so many Division IVs, Moringe Sokoine S.S. Form 4 performance was in the 86 percentile nationwide (it did better than 86 percent of schools).