Education - Noonkodin Secondary School

Noonkodin Secondary School in the Maasai village of Eluwai, Tanzania (a co-educational rural secondary school that is being built and run by Aang Serian), is pioneering a new approach to education: not training youth for desk jobs in town, but helping them find new ways to make village life more sustainable and fulfilling.
We currently have 30 students in Form 1, academically equivalent to Year 8 (eighth grade), 20 in Form 2, and 20 students taking a specially designed access course aimed at bridging the gap between Swahili-medium primary school and English-medium secondary school.

Our aim is to train dynamic, innovative leaders, from many tribes and nations, who can set their own agenda for genuinely sustainable rural development - building on the acquired knowledge of the past to meet present-day needs without risking the lives or health of future generaitons. We also hope to:

Provide affordable, high quality secondary education recognised at the national level;

Raise awareness of the importance and practical applications of indigenous knowledge, traditional skills and oral literature;

Contribute to the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity, by encouraging students to research and document their elders' knowledge;

Encourage communication between students from different tribes and nations, with a view to sharing best practices and learning from others' experiences.

Alongside the Tanzanian national curriculum we offer a structured co-curricular programme that combines 'traditional' and 'modern' education, incorporating topics such as Indigenous Knowledge , Peoples and Cultures, Environment and Society, Sustainable Agriculture, Ethics & Development, Appropriate Technology, Integrated Health Care and Rural Economics. Young people interview elders in the local communities and discuss their findings in multi-cultural seminars.

All of our students also have opportunities to work on joint projects with international volunteers and with the local community, including a pre-school that is being established by the Olomayani Women’s Group.

Thanks to the combined efforts of individuals, small charities, private companies, UK schools and the Britain-Tanzania Society's Tanzania Development Trust, we've already raised over £25,000 ($43,000) to build and run the school.

Four classrooms (two large and two small ones) and a science laboratory are complete, together with a small office, a temporary dormitory for girls, a 3 bedroom staff house and latrines. We're also grateful to the Village Government of Eluwai for allowing us to take over a disused clinic as a temporary hostel for boys.

Our greatest needs now are for additional dormitories and shower blocks for both boys and girls, as the demand for places far outweighs the number of beds available in the temporary accommodation. With your help, we could offer our unique blend of traditional and modern education to 80 more young people in 2007. Any contribution, however small, is very gratefully received.

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We currently have 30 students in Form 1, academically equivalent to Year 8 (eighth grade), 20 in Form 2, and 20 students taking a specially designed access course aimed at bridging the gap between Swahili-medium primary school and English-medium secondary school.

Our aim is to train dynamic, innovative leaders, from many tribes and nations, who can set their own agenda for genuinely sustainable rural development - building on the acquired knowledge of the past to meet present-day needs without risking the lives or health of future generaitons. We also hope to:

Provide affordable, high quality secondary education recognised at the national level;

Raise awareness of the importance and practical applications of indigenous knowledge, traditional skills and oral literature;

Contribute to the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity, by encouraging students to research and document their elders' knowledge;

Encourage communication between students from different tribes and nations, with a view to sharing best practices and learning from others' experiences.