SIGARETI, January M. L.
Description:
This study investigated the Impact of Parents‟ Contribution upon Students‟ Equitable
Accesses of Secondary Education in Misungwi District. In particular the study
sought to examine the contributions that parents incurred in financing secondary
education, to assess the impacts of parents‟ contribution upon students‟ equitable
access to education and to examine the internal efficiency attributable to
contributions in secondary schools.
The scope of the Study was all Public Secondary Schools in Missungwi District. Ten
secondary schools were randomly sampled to obtain 384 respondents: where with
361 students were randomly selected. Moreover, 22 Heads of Schools and one
District Education Officer were purposively selected. This study was carried out by
using both cross-section and quasi-experimental designs. In case of research
approach mixed method was used. With respect to instruments: questionnaires for
students, interview guide for school heads, DEO and parents were used to collect
findings.
The study found that school fees, uniforms, transport, text books and stationeries are
among the direct contributions incurred by parents, also the study found that, dropout
rate, truancy, absenteeism, pregnancy were among the impacts caused by the
involvement of parents in contributions. The study found that apart from
contributions there were other factors which caused poor internal efficiency of
students in schools. These were ignorance, diseases, poverty, indiscipline cases,
conflicting instructions, lack of foods at schools, staffing situation and shortage of
teaching and learning resources. The study recommends that the government should
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establish proper ways of utilizing the available resources in financing education and
initiate income generating activities such as education trust funds.