Teachers’ attitude towards the teaching profession and its impact on students’academic performance: A Study in Singida Municipality, Tanzania

The study sought to assess the extent to which the teachers’ attitude towards the teaching profession contributes to students’ academic performance in ordinary co-secondary schools in Singida Municipality. The study examined the teacher-student relationship in teaching and learning activities. It employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches by using the case study design to select the four schools from community and private ownership. The selected schools had high and low students’ academic performance. The causal comparative design was adopted to measure the correlation between the teachers’ attitude to teaching and the students’ academic performance. The study used a sample of 172 respondents categorized into parents, students, and teachers, Ward Education Coordinators, Municipal Education Officer, Municipal Teachers’ Services Department Secretary and Municipal Teachers’ Union Secretary. Data were collected through semi-structured interview, non-participatory observation, Focused Group Discussion and documentary review and were analyzed by tabulation, calculating, coding, narration and use of correlation methods to measure whether the nature of the relationship between the teachers’ attitude to teaching and the students’ academic performance was direct or non-direct. The study findings revealed that the students’ academic performance was dropping and the teachers’ attitude to teaching was negative. The teachers’ negativity to teaching was not flexibly demonstrated but through their teaching and learning practices, which were marked ineffective by the school management, students and the community. The study concluded that there was a spurious kind of non-direct relationship between the teachers’ attitude to teaching and the students’ academic performance. This implied that both the teachers’ negative attitude to teaching and the students’ low academic performance were caused by unfulfilled needs, such as increasing salary, improving the teaching and learning environment, providing teaching, transport and house allowances, building hostels, laboratories and providing social services like food, drinking water and others per school location. These needs acted as the confounding factors, which when supplied could result to teachers’ positive attitude to teach and students’ high academic performance.The study recommends that the education stakeholders at the national, regional, district, ward, school and community levels have to cooperate in finding the appropriate measures towards alleviating the root causes in students' low academic performance and teachers' ineffectiveness in teaching so that the quality education to all students is realized in Tanzania.