Refugees in Tanzania: Migrant children face challenges getting education

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In Tanzania, refugee children aren't getting proper schooling. Aid agencies are incapable of providing enough support due to a lack of cash. Students in camps have been forced to attend classes out in the open, and without enough teachers or learning materials.

Tanzania hosts over 280-thousand refugees and asylum seekers, mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. The Furaha Primary School, located in Tanzania's north-western Kigoma district, hosts about 200 students. Many of them are refugees from Burundi, Tanzania's neighbor.

EUPHRASIE HAFASHIMANA STUDENT "Look over there, there are not enough chairs. They need to add more chairs over there, as well as over there so that students don't have to sit on the ground because there are no chairs so that they don't get their clothes dirty."

Classes here are held out in the open. There aren't enough benches and blackboards so teachers have to improvise. There are only 193 permanent classrooms for about 9,600 children in three camps. Many children learn in flimsy tents that collapse in the wind and bake in the midday sun. As a result, some students have to drop out to make money.

JAMES ONYANGO EDUCATION OFFICER, UN REFUGEE AGENCY "It is an environment where a child cannot properly learn. We need more money. Construction of the classroom pretty much translates to we need money to put the classrooms there."

Fleeing political violence at home, about 10,000 Burundians arrived in neighbouring Tanzania every month near the end of 2016, swelling three already overcrowded north-western camps.