---
title: "Waiting for school to start"
description: "For the first time since she fled the violence in Burundi, Diane will have a safe learning environment again."
url: "https://www.nrc.no/news/2017/august/waiting-for-school-to-start"
language: "en"
published: "2017-08-28T13:18:30Z"
modified: "2017-08-28T13:18:30Z"
---

![Ten-year-old Diane impatiently awaits the completion of her new school. She often visits the construction site to check in on the progress. Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC ](https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/images/countries/tanzania/img_8200.jpg)

# Waiting for school to start

Published 28. Aug 2017

[Burundi](https://www.nrc.no/themes?categoryId=37) [Tanzania](https://www.nrc.no/themes?categoryId=110) [Children](https://www.nrc.no/themes?categoryId=140) [Education](https://www.nrc.no/themes?categoryId=145)

This article was first published more than 9 years ago

For the first time since she fled the violence in Burundi, Diane will have a safe learning environment again.

Along with hundreds of thousands of Burundians, she has sought safety in Tanzania with her family.

### A dangerous journey

“It was around 11pm. We were sleeping,” Diane’s mother, Josiane, recounts. “Suddenly we heard noises outside. Some armed people had surrounded our house.”

A male voice called her husband’s name and demanded that he step outside. Josiane says: “He obliged. They grabbed him and dragged him into the darkness.”

This was the beginning of a dangerous journey for the family, who, like many other Burundians, lost a father and a husband to violence fuelled by political division.

Diane was devastated and traumatised by the time she arrived with her family in Mtendeli refugee camp, in Tanzania’s north-western Kigoma region. Her school and her best friend were long behind her.

![Diane with her mother, Josiane. The two suffered immense psychological trauma upon fleeing Burundi, only to find no schools for Diane to attend. Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC ](https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/images/countries/tanzania/img_8216.jpg)

### Dismal camp conditions

In Mtendeli camp, to Diane’s dismay, there were no schools. Nor were there books or pens for her to study on her own.

These shortages are not just in Mtendeli camp. Throughout the region, refugee camps quickly filled and have been well over capacity for some time. The conditions are dire.

“There’s not enough space to provide the minimum safety and privacy that every person deserves,” explains Carolina Lucia Mansur, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) camp management expert in Tanzania. “Fulfilling daily activities like education, sleeping, washing and dressing can become a real challenge.”

The inability to educate these children, who make up half of the total residents, is a pressing issue. In these camps, refugee children gather in large groups, up to three hundred apiece, to try to learn from volunteer teachers in the woods. Their chairs are stones and their blackboards are the dirt.

> There’s not enough space to provide the minimum safety and privacy that every person deserves. Fulfilling daily activities like education, sleeping, washing and dressing can become a real challenge.”

### A new school

NRC is building a primary school in Mtendeli refugee camp for children without proper classrooms, as well as a youth education centre. The school construction is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The primary school is being built near Diane’s home, so she’ll have no trouble going to school. Her excitement is mounting, and her impatience grows. She and her friends frequently visit the construction site to monitor the progress.

“I hope I will get teachers who make me laugh, like those that I had in Burundi,” says Diane. “I want to study very hard so I can become a teacher, too.”

![Diane shows her excitement during a visit to her future school’s construction site. Photo: Ingrid Prestetun/NRC ](https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/images/countries/tanzania/img_8164.jpg)

*See our [Tanzania country page](https://www.nrc.no/countries/africa/old-versions/nrc-in-tanzania) for more information on NRC’s operation throughout the country.*

**Education in Kigoma**

- In Tanzania’s Kigoma region, just under half of the 300,000 refugees in Kigoma are **Burundian and Congolese schoolchildren**.
- Despite this high figure – **46 per cent** – education opportunities in the refugee camps are extremely limited and out-of-school rates in the camp are high. More than 33,000 children are not enrolled in school.
- Tanzanian authorities don’t accept temporary structures, so many children are **learning outside under trees** in huge groups.
- Where classrooms do exist, they are overcrowded, with sometimes **between 200 and 300 pupils per class**.
- An additional **1,442 classrooms are needed** to provide quality learning environments for all school-aged children in the region.
- These overcrowded classrooms have a **huge negative impact** on each student’s learning.

**The situation in Tanzania**

- In 2015, Burundi’s president Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would run for a third term, sparking massive protests and wreaking havoc across the country.
- Today, there are **over 250,000 Burundian refugees in Tanzania**. They have fled political instability and land crisis throughout the country.
- As a result of decades of displacement and lack of strong legal structures to safeguard people’s land, most Burundians displaced during the previous conflict have ended up being **dispossessed of their land**, with no way to claim it back.
- The Burundian refugee situation in Tanzania is **severely underfunded**. Humanitarian organisations have only received ten per cent of what is needed to support people displaced by the conflict.