Educator

Stephen Mhando was trained as a teacher, and was very passionate about every Tanzanian receiving quality education. He received a teaching diploma from the distinguished Makerere University, Uganda. After graduating from Makerere University in 1939, he returned to Tanganyika to work as a school teacher. Stephen Mhando was first indigenous Tanzanian Teacher at the ‘Old Tanga School’.

The Old Tanga school was the first formal Government School in Tanganyika, built during German colonial rule in 1889. Between 1961 and 1963, Mhando taught Swahili in Leipzig (East Germany), where he married an East German lady.

He also created a Swahili to German dictionary with the collaboration of a German linguistics expert. In 1963, he took up a teaching position at the newly formed University College, Dar es salaam. In his retirement he served on the local school board in Tanga.