Many children in Zanzibar, both boys and girls are now attending school as evidenced by an 84% primary enrollment rate. Despite an increase in awareness of the importance of going to school, there are still an estimated 69,000 children of school going age who are out of school or have never entered school in Zanzibar. Those in school are struggling to attain foundational literacy and numeracy skills with nearly 20% of standard 7 students failing the Standard 7 examination.

This eventually results in a nearly 50% drop off of students due to massive failures at the Form 2 examination. A multitude of factors including insufficient and overcrowded classrooms, undertrained and underpaid teachers, and minimal teaching and learning materials contribute to these poor results. Milele Zanzibar Foundation’s strategic interventions and collaborations with education partners aim to address the many challenges with a focus on the following:

1. Facilitating access to safe, healthy and conducive learning environments
2. Promoting equitable, quality teaching and learning of relevant, critical 21st Century skills Nursery – Tertiary.

In 2015-2016 Milele Zanzibar Foundation education programmes were able to support nearly 60 schools through various interventions including infrastructure, scholarships, training, and capacity building programmes impacting over 200,000 students and teachers.