Excerpt
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATION
COPYRIGHT
DECLARATION
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF ACRONYMS
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
1.2 Problem Statement
1.3 Objectives of the study
1.3.1 General objective
1.3.2 Specific objectives
1.4 Research questions
1.5 Significance of the study
1.6 Scope of the Study
1.7 Limitations of the study
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The concept of Fee Free Education (FFE)
2.2 Challenges in Abolishing School Fees
2.3 The impacts of FFE policy
2.4 Research Gap
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Description of the study Area
3.2 Sampling procedure and Sample size
3.2.1 Research design
3.2.2 Research approach
3.2.3 Sampling Procedure
3.2.4 Sample size
3.3 Data collection methods
3.3.1 Primary data
3.3.2 Secondary data
3.4 Data Analysis and Presentation
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1 Understanding on the Concept of Fee Free Education
4.1.1 Teachers’ understanding on FFE policy
4.1.2 Students’ understanding on FFE policy
4.1.3 Parents’ understanding on FFE policy
4.2 Involvement in the implementation of FFE
4.2.1 Teachers’ involvement in implementation of FFE
4.2.2 Students’ involvement in implementation of FFE
4.3 Challenges in the Implementation of FFE
4.3.1 Challenges in the Implementation of FFE according to teachers
4.3.2 Challenges in the Implementation of FFE according to students
4.3.3 Challenges in the Implementation of FFE according to Parents
4.4 Impacts of the Implementation of FFE policy
4.4.1 Impacts of the Implementation of FFE policy according to teachers
4.4.2 Impacts of the Implementation of FFE policy according to students
4.4.3 Impacts of the Implementation of FFE policy according to parents
4.5 Suggestions for Improving Provision of FFE
4.5.1 Teachers’ suggestions for Improving Provision of FFE
4.5.2 Students’ suggestions for Improving Provision of FFE
4.5.3 Parents’ suggestions for Improving Provision of FFE
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Conclusion
5.2 Recommendations
REFERENCES
APPENDICES
6.1 APPENDIX I: QUESTIONNAIRES
6.2 APPENDIX II: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR PARENTS
DEDICATION
I dedicate this scholarly work to the almighty God a source of all knowledge, who enabled me to pursue my studies in all levels up to university level. I also dedicate this work to my lovely parents Mr. & Mrs. Elibariki Shang’wet.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Firstly, I would like to thank our Almighty God for his protection and guidance throughout my studies. I would not be fair if I don’t thank my parents Mr. & Mrs. Elibariki Shang’wet for their valuable support and contribution in my studies since primary up to undergraduate level, may God bless them.
I express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Mr. Musiba Masamba for his esteemed support from a very starting point of this work, you contributed much to the achievement of this work, and God will repay your time.
My sincere thanks goes to my colleagues Meshack Edwin, Edward Peter, Kidumu Ernest, Mgeni Frank and Juma Khalfan for their ideal support in preparation of this work, their support helped much to accomplishment of this study.
I would like to extend my genuine thanks to all respondents in Morogoro Municipal area for their assistance during data collection, may almighty bless all of you. It is not possible to thank everyone individually but I would like to thank all who participated in one way or another to the attainment of this study. Let the great God grant you with his glory, peace and blessings.
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Respondents' categorization
Table 2: Teachers’ assessment on FFE understanding and implementation
Table 3: Students’ assessment regarding FFE understanding and Implementation
Table 4: Teachers’ Views on the Challenges in the Provision of FFE
Table 5: Students’ Views on the Challenges in the Provision of FFE
Table 6: Challenges in the Provision of FFE according to Parents
Table 7: Impacts of FFE policy as per teachers
Table 8: Impacts of FFE policy as per students
Table 9: Impacts of FFE policy according to parents
Table 10: Teachers’ Suggestions on FFE policy improvement
Table 11: Parents’ Suggestions on FFE policy improvement
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Geographical map of Morogoro Municipality
Figure 2: Pie chart showing Teachers' understanding on FEE Policy
Figure 3: Pie chart showing Students'' understanding on FEE Policy
Figure 4: Parents’ understanding on FFE policy
Figure 5: A graph showing Students' uncertainties on the FFE policy implementations
Figure 6: A graph showing Teachers’ Views on the Challenges in the Provision of FFE
Figure 7: A graph showing Students’ Views on the Challenges in the Provision of FFE
Figure 8: A graph showing Challenges in the Provision of FFE according to Parents
Figure 9: Graph showing Impacts of FFE policy as per teachers
Figure 10: A pie chart showing Impacts of FFE policy as per students
Figure 11: A pie chart showing Impacts of FFE policy according to parents
Figure 12: A graph showing Teachers’ Suggestions on FFE policy improvement
Figure 13: Pie chart showing parents’ Suggestions on FFE policy improvement
LIST OF ACRONYMS
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
ABSTRACT
This study investigated the impacts of fee free education policy implementation in public secondary schools, a case of Morogoro Municipality, Morogoro region in Tanzania. The study was guided by two specific objectives including: investigation of stakeholders’ understanding on the essence of fee free education and evaluation of the challenges encountered during the implementation of fee free education policy in Tanzania. The study involved a sample of 45 participants. Two data collection methods were included i.e. questionnaires and interviews. Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS) version 20 employed in data analysis for quantitative analysis. Analyzed data are then presented in different formats such as graphs, charts and tables.
Findings revealed that 93%, 90% and 73% of assessed teachers, students and parents respectively are aware of the FFE policy innovation and its implementation. The challenges in the implementation of FFE policy includes overcrowded classrooms, lack of the parents’ awareness regarding FFE, shortage of science teachers, insufficient treasuries allocation in schools and large students- teachers ratio. The findings also discovered several impacts due to the implementation of FFE policy including the increased students enrolment, reduced students’ drop out and truancy, increased demands of funding for school functions, insufficient teaching and learning materials, and engagement of parents in school’s social and economic activities.
Recommendations to improve the implementations of FFE as per respondents includes educating community, students and parents on FFE concept, improving working conditions for teachers, there are needs to employ new teachers, improving school infrastructures, ensuring availability of teaching materials and in-service training programs for teachers.
Keywords: Fee Free Education, Secondary Schools, Implementation, Challenges, Impacts.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
Education is one of the most important sector in any nation. It is the responsibility of a government to set and launch national education policy and participate in setting up international policies on education. Countries have been investing much in education especially primary and secondary education, regarded as a basic education (Abagi, 1998).
Since independence 1961, Tanzania has made various efforts in broadening the education service to her people. This is to ensure that education service is accessible to nearly every Tanzanian. In Tanzania, the first effort of Fee Free Education was instigated in 1963 to ensure that majority of Tanzanians get education and to remove the enrolment gap between poor and rich households. Therefore, government financed and provided free education from primary to university level (HakiElimu, 2017). International efforts on ensuring free education for all also guided Tanzania towards implementation of free education. World Conference on Education for All (EFA) held on 1990 at Jomtien in Thailand rearticulated the desire of achieving Universal Primary Education by 2000 (UNESCO, 2000).
In 2000, it was then realized that most countries failed to achieve or implement the goal of UPE, hence two international efforts were declared to ensure access to free education, these were Dakar Framework for Action and Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). These declarations had similar goals, they needed every government to ensure all children especially girls should have access to and complete primary education by 2015 (UNESCO, 2000).
However, the currently released Education and Training Policy in Tanzania (2014) stated the removal of fees in primary to lower secondary level of education. The implementation of the FFE policy had three circulars. The Education Circular No. 5 issued on 27 November 2015, The Education Circular No. 6 issued on 10 December 2015 and The Education Circular No. 5 issued on 25 May 2016. The primary aim of these three circulars was to ensure that FFE should be provided to children from primary to ordinary secondary level in public schools.
1.2 Problem Statement.
Tanzania like other countries in the world struggles to improve the provision of the education service to her people. FFE is one of the effort made to make sure that every school age Tanzanian, have an access to quality education. However, many challenges accompanies the process of policy implementation though government struggles much in overcoming those challenges and problems associated with the program.
Since the formulation of new Education and Training Policy (ETP) in 2014, there are great changes in the education sector as we witness the great enrolment of students in primary schools as well as the reduced dropouts from secondary schools. The policy led to increased class sizes as well as teacher to student ratio. However, impacts FFE to the people socially, economically as well as politically are not well studied. Therefore, it is the primary aim of this study to assess those impacts.
1.3 Objectives of the study.
1.3.1 General objective.
To assess the impacts of Fee Free Education (FFE) in public schools in Tanzania.
1.3.2 Specific objectives.
The researcher will be guide by the following specific objectives:
a) To investigate stakeholders’ understanding on the essence of fee free education
b) To evaluate the challenges encountered during the implementation of fee free education policy in Tanzania.
1.4 Research questions.
This study is guide by the following research questions
a) Do stakeholders understand the essence FFE policy implementation?
b) Are there any challenges facing the implementation of fee free education?
1.5 Significance of the study.
The findings of this study are estimated to provide insights to the government and other education stakeholders on the real situation of the impacts brought to the society due to the implementation of the fee free education in the society. Findings will also help government to make some improvements in the policy implementations as per recommendations of this study. This study will also help to broaden the understanding of the concept of fee free education in a community. Moreover, the study is expected to provide a wide field to allow researchers to conduct more studies on the issue of Fee Free Education.
1.6 Scope of the Study
This study investigated the impacts of fee free education policy in Tanzania especially schools in Morogoro Municipal Council. However, the results could be generalized in Morogoro region and Tanzania at large.
1.7 Limitations of the study
During the study, there were different problems that emerged making a study somewhat difficult. The major limitation was insufficient time as researcher is also a student that he has to attend the lectures while doing research. Another great issue is COVID-19 pandemic associated with, the pandemic hindered data collection process resulting to somehow late analysis of data as well as report writing as per scheduled time.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The concept of Fee Free Education (FFE).
Fee free education is a one of the strategies to eliminate the problem of omission and demotion of the children and youths to have access in education (UNESCO, 2009). The strategy follows the global declaration of human rights and opportunities to have access in education. Several countries provide free education after realizing the essential role of the basic education to the social as well as economic development (UNESCO, 2009).
It is one of the United Nation's Dakar objectives set in 2000, to achieve Universal Primary Education and the development and education strategy reforms of Millennium Development Goal focus on poverty alleviation. Thus, the emphasis is on inclusion education that responds to different learning needs and removing exclusion to ensure equity and equality for children from the poor and disadvantaged communities for quality education. Nation wise the strategy started soon after the launch of the Education and Training Policy 2014 that insisted fee free basic education (MoEVT, 2013).
2.2 Challenges in Abolishing School Fees
Many studies are conducted on the challenges accompanying free education system. Various scholars found that, removal of fees in schools leads to challenges linked to issues of sustainability, perseverance of inequalities, equity and equality, informal collection of school and other related fees, issues related to availability and quality of teachers, and compromises in expanding access and improving the quality of education (Kattan, 2006). For instance, there was a challenge to maintain the quality of education with the increase of enrolment, repetition and dropout rates. The question of continued disparity creates gender and equity gaps between remote and urban populations.
Moreover, there is also a challenge of increased centralization of education, which caused the loss of the local community accountability and responsibilities in development of schools (Morojele, 2012). Many countries attempted to implement the education policy of fee free basic education faced the shortage of teachers. They had problems of recruiting new staff, and running in-service training. Furthermore, it was found from prior study that the school fees were the major obstacle for millions of children to be enrolled and complete primary education globally (Kattan, 2006). It is reported that, caution for countries intending to abolish school fees needs serious planning to avoid the overwhelming impact to the system of education.
Kattan observed that the limited knowledge about the link between education and industry among parents, the walking distance to and from school as well as to the exposure to job opportunities contribute to the children not to enroll in schools. Moreover, the study reported the issues that contribute girls’ rates of enrollment included the availability of teachers, daycare facilities, latrines and water, and the flexibility and supportive school calendar, school cultural values and norms (Kattan, 2006). Presence of these challenges calls for school heads to be very competent enough to manage their schools very well towards achieving the goals of free education. Implementation of any program in schools depends on the professional leadership competences of schools heads (Aluko and Adan, 2015).
Therefore, poor planning on how to accommodate the increased number of students had results into bad effects on the quality of education in Tanzania such as overcrowded classes and shortage of teachers (Twaweza, 2016). Heads of schools therefore copes with the challenges of FFE by sharing experiences and knowledge among themselves and the newly appointed school heads were being coached and mentored by Heads of Schools who were more experienced (Godda, 2018).
2.3 The impacts of FFE policy.
HakiElimu, (2017) carried out a survey in seven districts in Tanzania including Njombe, Mpwapwa, Muleba, Korogwe, Sumbawanga, Kilosa, and Tabora Urban in Mainland Tanzania to explore stakeholders’ views about the merits and demerits of implementing fee free education policy and practices of spending grants and subsidies to facilitate the policy. The study involved 910 participants from the mentioned districts. There were primary and secondary schools from which teachers, heads of schools, School committees and boards interviewed about the implementation of the policy.
The results indicated the impact of implementing fee free education in Tanzania. Firstly, the study found that there was rapid increase in student enrolment for basic education during SEPD and PEDP. There was marks of declining quality of education amplified by the lack of classrooms, increased teaching loads among secondary school teachers, shortage of schools, and shortage of teaching resources (HakiElimu, 2017). Moreover, the quality of education affected by declining teachers’ performance and motivation, great teacher-student ratio and overcrowded classrooms (HakiElimu, 2017).
Although Fee Free Education focuses on addressing equity and equality issues in the provision of education, the issues appeared to be not seriously considered because the parental responsibilities are still unbearable among the poor and excluded children: street children, HIV/AIDs affected children, children in conflicts zones and remote populations (HakiElimu, 2017). Government Circular No. 3 in 2014 policy guided that, the parental responsibilities cover the following costs: health expenses, travel to and from school, lunch for day students and those in hostels, exercise books, pens and pencils, ruler and schools’ uniforms. In addition, Kattan, (2006) noted that when the direct and indirect charges were combined, the parents spend about 13,000 TShs. for their children’s schooling per year. The most affected are the poor families and the study recommended to review the costs.
2.4 Research Gap.
Various scholars have discussed the concept, prevalence and various cases in the country, which emerged as the implementation of the free education policy moves on. It seems that most studies are conducted in other countries apart from Tanzania, while some few studies done within our country. However, no any studies conducted similarly to this one especially on the impacts of FFE as well as the selected study area and sample used for the data collection in this study. Therefore, findings, conclusion and recommendation of this study fills up the gap.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Description of the study Area.
The study is conducted in Morogoro municipality in Morogoro region located in the eastern part of Tanzania, 196 kilometers west of Dar es Salaam and 260 kilometers east of Dodoma. The region is approximated to the population of 315,866 people (URT, 2013). Morogoro municipality lies at the base of Uluguru Mountains, the climate in this area is tropical, and its vegetation is variable ranging from low land forests habitats to transitional rainforests, to sub montane, montane and upper montane forests. It is a base of education and agriculture; there are a number of universities and schools offering education, agricultural support and outreach (URT, 2012).
This figure was deleted by the editors due to copyright issues
Figure 1: Geographical map of Morogoro Municipality
3.2 Sampling procedure and Sample size
3.2.1 Research design
The study employed a case study research design. This type of design was chosen, as it is easy to collect the detailed data. The case study design is also less expensive compared to experimental or survey design, the participation of researcher in the study can be easily done and data collection methods like interview, observation, questionnaire and focus group discussion can be done easily (Cochran, 2002).
Through case study design, the researcher collects both primary data from education stakeholders and some secondary data from previous conducted research reports, documents and library.
3.2.2 Research approach.
This study utilized mixed research approach, dominated by qualitative aspects. This is because there is a great need of understanding and interpreting individuals’ views, opinions and perceptions with regard to researchers’ experience and the socio-economic and cultural contexts (Kothari, 2004).
On the other hand, the study has some quantitative aspects whereby analysis and presentation of data employs numerical information in form of percentages and fractions. Graphical trends of various phenomena will also be part of the study. Therefore, in some parts of the study, there were necessity to use of both approaches; the mixed approach will be inevitable.
The simple random sampling procedure. This provided each individual with an equal chance of being selected from the population for the aim of producing representative sample from bias (Ghauri & Gronhaug, 2005).
Parents, teachers and students were randomly selected. The study focus on a group of people believed to have reliable information for the study. In this case, also purposive sampling was used due to the nature of the study whereby students, teachers and parents were purposely selected to provide necessary information for the study. This was due to limited time in data collection as a researcher is also a student.
3.2.4 Sample size.
Sample is a small group of people that represent characteristic of the target population. There is no fixed number or percentage of subject that determines the size of an adequate sample, instead it may depend upon the nature of population of interest and the data to be gathered and analyzed (Best and Kahn, 2006).
The study included three (03) selected public secondary schools in Morogoro municipality with sixty, (60) respondents including 30 students, 15 teachers and 15 parents selected from each secondary school.
Table 1: Respondents' categorization
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3.3 Data collection methods.
3.3.1 Primary data.
In this study, primary data collection methods used were interview and questionnaire
3.3.1.1 Interview
The interview was used because it helps to use limited time available with every interviewee. It also helps to understand deeper of the interviewees' experiences, feelings and perspectives on the essence of free education. The interview method is simple because the interviewer has a chance to change questions according to the reaction of the interviewee (Patton, 2004).
Therefore, this study used face-to-face interview to collect information from parents on the analysis of the impacts of fee free education in public secondary schools.
3.3.1.2 Questionnaire.
Also in this study, questionnaire is a research instrument used to collect data. The questionnaires included both closed and open-ended questions. The closed ended questionnaire purposely aims at securing the standard and uniformity of answers. The open-ended questionnaire intends to explore the respondent's ideas and feelings about the research problem (Cochran, 2002).
In this study, respondents were given typed questionnaires to fill by themselves and return them to the researcher, containing data about the analysis of free education policy in Morogoro municipality selected secondary schools.
3.3.2 Secondary data.
The secondary data were obtained from books, articles, reports and internet search engines.
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