1,035 girls back in class, and the pass rates followed: Handeni's quiet education turnaround in Tanzania

In Handeni district, in Tanzania's Tanga region, 1,035 girls from vulnerable backgrounds have been supported to stay in — or return to — secondary school through a partnership between the government and CAMFED Tanzania, the organisation that specialises in girls' education. The programme, running since 2024 across the district's 25 secondary schools, reaches girls who had dropped out under social and economic pressure, and the results are showing up where they count. District education officer Noel Kombo reports the Form Two pass rate rising from 83% to 89.6%, Form Four from 86.3% to 90.3%, and Form Six holding at 100%. The remaining obstacle is awareness: many families do not know national rules allow students who left to re-enter formal schooling, so the district is taking the message to village meetings and following up individually with returnees — 35 recently re-enrolled students have already been assessed and guided into courses. A thousand girls is a statistic; a pass rate climbing behind them is a trajectory.

SDG 4 · Quality education — Mechanism: institutional program