One of the qualities of a good teacher is his/her ability to motivate students’ learning by creatively using teaching resources. Yet, the apparent shortage of “formal” teaching resources in Tanzania made some teachers teach without using any teaching-learning aids, arguing that the school’s budget (‘Government’) has not made available money to purchase such teaching materials.

At the School of Education, our students are trained to recognize that there are a myriad of teaching-learning materials available within the surrounding environment which require no or only little financial resource inputs, provided that the students are keen, inquisitive and creative enough to survey and make use of the environment. Students learn to be innovative and to use the surrounding environment effectively to prepare teaching resources that aid teaching and learning process. Where no ‘formal’ or ‘traditional’ resources can be accessed, the language of a creative person is ‘improvise’.  Our wood workshop [carpentry shop] provides students with hand-on skills on how to prepare teaching and learning resources using locally available materials. Thus, student-teachers are trained to believe that innovative teachers do not always have to wait for the government (or its agency) to provide money to buy teaching resources. The photos below show some materials that have been prepared by student-teachers out of the richly endowed surrounding environment.