Browsing by Author "Fussy, Daniel"

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    The effectiveness of school heads in institutionalising teacher ethics in Tanzania: the case of Iringa Municipality Secondary Schools
    (University of Dar es salaam, 2012) Fussy, Daniel
    This study investigated the effectiveness of school heads in institutionalising teacher ethics in Tanzania’s secondary schools, using Iringa Municipality as a case study. Specifically, the study assessed the school heads’ awareness of their professional obligations in institutionalising teacher ethics, identified the practices that school heads employ to institutionalise teacher ethics, and established the challenges that school heads face in their efforts to institutionalise teacher ethics. The study employed a qualitative approach, informed by a case study design. The study deployed both purposive sampling and simple random sampling techniques to obtain 66 informants, made up of secondary school heads, teachers and students. In-depth face-to-face interviews and document search were deployed to collect the necessary data. The data was analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis that involved six major steps: familiarisation with data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes and producing the report. The findings revealed that school heads in both public and private secondary schools were aware of their professional obligations retaining to the institutionalisation of teacher ethics. The school heads also deployed staff meetings, supervision and counselling of individual teachers, posting of circulars on staff room notice-boards, and allotment of weekly virtue practices to institutionalise teacher ethics. However, the school heads encountered challenges such as little support from top education officers, uncooperative teachers, political interventions, and heavy workload in their endeavours to institutionalise teacher ethics. It was also established that the majority of school heads were ineffective in institutionalising teacher ethics. The findings of the study imply that the majority of practices school heads employ in institutionalising teacher ethics lacked a profound impact on shaping teachers’ conduct and school discipline. As such, the study recommends that school heads should exemplify ethical conduct within and outside school premises by serving as role models for the teachers to facilitate the promotion of teacher ethics. Also, the Ministry of Education should institute pre-service training and induction programmes for aspiring and newly-appointed school heads to further raise the awareness of school heads’ professional obligations and address some of the challenges most of the school heads face in institutionalising teacher ethics.