Where Are They Now? Catching Up with SEGA’s 2016 Graduates

Record-high pass rates and SEGA’s career development internships are moving our 2016 graduates toward successful futures. 

Aneth, a 2016 SEGA graduate.

We learned recently that 100% of SEGA’s 2016 graduates passed their national exams! This was a tremendous achievement for the students, and a first for SEGA as a school. Only about 70% of Tanzanian students pass these exams nationwide. We are extremely proud of our students for their outstanding success, and the graduates were overjoyed. The day that all the other students found out that their “sisters” had all passed, there was cheering and clapping all over the school.

When the NECTA results came in, counselors held meetings with the girls and their parents to analyze the results and discuss options for each girl’s next steps. Based on the individual exam results, the main options are to go to government college, go to vocational training, or go on to A-levels.

After the graduates received these results and had these discussions earlier in March, they began doing internships through SEGA’s career development programs. These internships run from March through June, during the period while the graduates are waiting to start their next levels of school elsewhere. SEGA counselors have a certain number of internships every year, and they assign them according to how they think each girl will fit in at the internship.

Amina and Leokardia, 2016 SEGA graduates.

Much of the 2016 graduate class is from Iringa, an area about 320 km (200 miles) to the west of SEGA. Instead of coming back to SEGA to prepare for internships like the graduates often do, most of these students returned to Iringa to prepare for community internships with Msichana Kisasa, SEGA’s community outreach program, which is launching in Iringa later this year. Some are also doing internships at an orphanage, and others did return to SEGA to do internships on-campus, including projects like working on updating the new SEGA database with information from the library.

The career development internships are a great opportunity to apply the academic skills and life skills learned at SEGA in a real-world setting. Congratulations to our staff running these programs, and to all our recent graduates!