A THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF SOKOINE
UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE, MOROGORO, TANZANIA. 2017
The implementation of strategies to improve the academic performance of pupils varies
around the world. This could be due to variation in available resources and their
utilisation proficiency. In Tanzania, primary education accounted for over 40% of the
national education budget from 2008/09 to 2012/2013 Financial Years. The governance
of capitation grant (CG) in Government primary schools (GPS) in Morogoro region, as in
many other regions of Tanzania, is under school committees (SCs) with expectations that
the CG would be well managed to give intended outcomes. However, there are incidents
of mismanagement of the grant and declining pass-rates in the Primary School Leaving
Examinations (PSLEs) in Tanzania. Nevertheless, there is not enough knowledge on the
compliance of SCs with written rules, and on the effect of governance and CG on pupils’
academic performance. In addition, there is scanty information on the functioning of
School Committees in terms of their coping strategies, decisiveness, financial
management skills and governing aspect. In addition, there was not enough empirical
evidence to support the effect of school governance and capitation grant, as important
school system components, on education outcomes. Therefore, guided by the Open
System Theory (OST), Agency Theory (AT), Institutional Theory (IT) and Cognitive
Resource Theory (CRT), the study was conducted from August, 2014 to March 2015 in
Morogoro region to address the specified knowledge gap. The study adopted a
cross-sectional research design with mixed approach: qualitative and quantitative.
The study found that: SCs did not comply with spending rules due to inadequate CG;
there was much dependence of SCs members on school heads in decision making; SCs
members were not skilled in financial management; and adherence to good governance
principles was not enough because SCs did not guarantee maximum effectiveness, rule of law and accountability in capitation grant spending. This implies that there was imperfect link between the Capitation Grant Policy and the actual capitation grant spending practice which can be a breeding ground for the misuse of the grant. The hierarchical multiple regressions revealed a significant effect on pass-rates of CG disbursed to schools (ΔR2=0.033, ΔF=4.847, p < 0.05) and other school system components, but not that of governance (ΔR2=0.041, ΔF=1.212, p > 0.05). In addition, it is revealed that the CGDS and governance contributed to 7.5% of variance (combined ΔR2 = 0.033 + 0.042) in the total variance (R2 = 0.406). Also, their combination improved the prediction of pass-rate
by Teacher Pupil Ratio (TPR) from 62.5% (β = -0.625, t = -5.249, p < 0.01) to 68.1%
(β = -0.681, t = -5.710, p < 0.01). It is recommended that the Government and other
stakeholders improve disbursement, management and governance of the capitation grant,
and the TPR so as to boost the academic performance of pupils in the study area and
others with similar conditions.