Assessment of the contribution of secondary school education development programme (SEDP) on improvement of girls’ accessibility and academic performance: the case of Public Secondary Schools in Moshi Rural District

The study investigated the contribution of Secondary School Education Development Programme (SEDP) to improvement of girls’ accessibility and academic performance. In particular, the study had five research objectives, namely: To find out the extent to which SEDP objectives contribute in improving girls’ access and academic performance, to identify the challenges facing MoEVT in implementing SEDP’s objectives in improving girls’ education, the challenges facing girl students and stakeholders’ views on how to minimize the challenges. The study employed qualitative and quantitative approaches, using the case study design. Unstructured interviews, open and closed ended questionnaires, observation checklists and documentary reviews were used as instruments for data collection. Data were analyzed qualitatively through content analysis and quantitatively, using quantitative figures expressed in statistics to supplement qualitative information. Findings show that, although SEDP has improved enrolment of girl students in public secondary schools, disparity still persists. Girls are facing many challenges in public secondary schools such as pregnancies, drop out, long distances to school, sexual harassments and high school costs. Despite the challenges school girls are facing, SEDP slightly increased girls’ enrolment and to some extent improved girls’ performance when compared to the time before the existence of SEDP. The study recommends that MoEVT, through SEDP, has to construct hostels, community sensitization and improvement of sanitary facilities for girls. The Government need to also reform its policy so as to improve girls’ academic, enrolment and retention rates.