Form I
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Form I consists of 38 girls from Dar es Salaam, Songea, and Iringa all starting their first year in Secondary school. This class represents the first time that girls from so far away have come to Bethsaida. The headmistress Gabriella Felix travelled in 2008 for three weeks to the south of Tanzania to hold interviews and give the girls entrance exams.
Five of these girls attended Pre-Form I in 2008; the others arrived at Bethsaida in the beginning of January 2009. To prepare them for the challenge of speaking English in every subject, all 38 of the girls attended a preparatory English course. After the course’s final examination, the girls started their official lessons in February 2009. The Form I class prefects are Jovitha Nestory and Happy Martin.
Form II
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The 33 girls in Form II, coming mainly from the Dar es Salaam region, are studying hard to achieve excellent results on their coming national examinations. Instead of spending all June at home, the 33 girls came back to Bethsaida after one week of vacation in order to study and prepare for the their important National Exams in October 2009. They announced with pretty much confidence that they would perform better than last year's Form II.
A few of the girls are repeating Form II after not having performed well the first time, and they are now amongst our top Form II students. Form II hosts the former headgirl Geradina Alex (2007) and our current headgirl Angel Stanslaus. The class prefects are Victoria Christian and Jackline Christopher.
Form III
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We are very proud of our Form III, who were ranked 27th out of a total of 535 secondary schools in the Eastern Zone (Dar es Salaam, Morogoro and Pwani Region) in their Form II national examination last year. The 31 girls are struggling hard to keep up with the high expectations due to their success in 2008. Adrophina Alex, the school's current second headgirl, attends Form III and the Form III class prefects are Christina Mgamba and Digna Osward. The girls are happy to have a year without the stress of National Exams, but nonetheless they take their studies seriously like Form II and IV.
Form IV
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After attending one year of Pre-Form I, the 27 Form IV girls started their secondary education in 2006 as Bethsaida’s first class of Form I students. In their Form II national examinations in 2007, their scores ranked them 45th out of 363 schools. At the moment they are studying harder than ever to prepare for their most important exams, the Form IV National Examinations, which earns them their “O-Level” certificate.
Only an excellent result will allow them to start the advanced “A-Level” courses that form the last two years of Tanzanian secondary education and which are a condition for admission to Tanzania’s universities. Form IV is lead by Colletha Thomas and Rose Ngalau and hosts five former headgirls (Pudenciana Petro, 2005 and 2006; Rose Ngalau, 2005; Zainab Omari, 2006 and 2007 and Sara Kawonga and Donatilla Lyimo, 2008)
There are not only advantages of being the first Forms I, II, III or IV every year - it is still not clear whether the girls will be able to continue to study for their A-levels.
Their and our hope is to find sponsors who can cover the girls’ school fees for form V and VI at another secondary school. For more information regarding this topic, please click here.
The Form IV girls’ short CVs, generated in random order on the right side of the screen, explain more about these girls who need your support!