One room, 90 children and the attempt to teach…

This is roughly how my fellow volunteer and I experienced the primary school system at public elementary school in Tanzania. We spent a few days in an elementary school ourselves and were shocked by the circumstances.
The almost 90 children sat four or five to a wooden bench, not all of them had pencils and exercise books with them, there was banging and the lessons were accompanied by constant unrest, although there were three teachers there, two were just having breakfast. It quickly became clear how poorly educated the teachers themselves were and that they lacked pedagogical knowledge. We also realized that children in the second grade did not know how to write or solve simple arithmetic problems. So after 7 years of primary school, many young people finish without any real knowledge.
What can be done about this? After this traumatizing experience, we went to a private elementary school and asked for scholarships for our home-schooled children. English is spoken at most private schools, the learning level and class sizes are similar to schools here in Germany and the children achieve a really good level of education so that they can later take on qualified jobs. The children are often looked after there all day and we were pleasantly surprised at how quickly and well the children learned.