The efficacy of grievances handling approaches for public secondary school teachers’ grievances in Bagamoyo district

The purpose of the study was to assess the efficacy of grievances handling approaches for public secondary school teachers’ grievances in Bagamoyo district. The study had three objectives, namely to examine the forms of teachers’ grievances in Tanzanian secondary schools; to examine the teachers’ levels of satisfaction with the grievance handling approaches adopted in schools; and to assess the suitability of policies available for handling teachers’ grievances in Bagamoyo district secondary schools. The study was guided by two theories: the unifying psychological contract employee-employer relationship theory and the rationalist tradition theory. The study employed mixed methods of research approach, using convergent parallel design. The sample size was ninety eight (n=98) participants from Bagamoyo district in four schools, where ninety two (n=92) participants were from public secondary school teachers, four (n=4) heads of the public secondary schools, one (n=1) district secretary of teachers’ union and one (n=1) DEO. The purposive and simple random procedures were used to select the sample of this study. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews as well as documentary reviews; and were analyzed using descriptive analysis in calculating percentages, frequencies in tables in analyzing quantitative data and Miles and Huberman (1994) model was used in analyzing qualitative data. The findings of this study revealed the existence of grievances among teachers themselves, payment of low salary, poor housing and insufficient houses, delaying and denying of teachers’ leave/transfer permits and payment, as well as insufficient teaching and learning resources. These make some teachers suffer economically and socially, something that makes them work uncomfortably. However, some of the grievances affect gender and working experience. Furthermore, the study revealed that the approaches adopted to handle teachers’ grievances, including involvement of teachers in decision making, mentoring, conducting meeting and fore giving their own costs to rectify teachers’ situation, which were adequate in resolving teachers’ grievances, unlike other approaches like withholding grievances with promises of resolving later and the use of power to win a competitive situation which were inadequate in resolving teachers’ grievances. In addition, the study revealed that there was no clear policy or policy issues that address direct teachers’ grievances; rather, the policy addresses important issues which can avoid grievances if will be properly implemented. The study concluded that, the existing teachers’ grievances are serious problems encountered by teachers in their working stations. However, some of the adopted approaches were adequate in solving some grievances and others were inadequate because of lacking support from the central government and a clear education policy or policy issues towards teachers’ grievance handling approaches. Finally, the study recommended that, the central government should establish mechanisms to resolve grievances in public secondary schools since some approaches are inadequate because some grievances are beyond the school and district level. The existing teachers’ grievances handling approaches should be improved through including gender and working experience in resolving teachers’ grievances, since there are grievances that emanate from gender and working experience. Also, a clear policy that addresses teachers’ grievances handling approach should be formulated to deal with the existing teachers’ grievances public secondary schools.