Contribution of school- income generating projects in financing public secondary schools’ activities in Rungwe district Mbeya region, Tanzania

The purpose of this study was to explore the contribution of school-income generating projects in financing public secondary schools’ activities in Rungwe district Mbeya region, Tanzania. The study was guided by three objectives which are to: Determine the typical school-income generating projects, Explore the amount of money SIGPs contribute to school budgets and uses of that money, and Examine the challenges facing SIGPs and their possible remedies in public secondary schools in Rungwe district. The study employed qualitative method approach whereby multiple case study design was used. Interviews were used to collect data from 1 District Secondary Education Officer, 1 District Statistics and Logistics Officer, 6 Heads of Schools and 6 School Projects Prefects from six selected public secondary schools. Focus group discussions were used to collect data from 36 School Management Team members. The sample size of the study was 50 participants, whereas purposive sampling strategy was used to select participants and data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings of the study revealed that, bananas cultivation, cow rearing, avocado cultivation, school shop, fish ponds, bee keeping, beans and maize cultivation were the typical SIGPs practiced in the studied schools. The findings revealed that the range of 281,000/= Tshs to 4,192,300/= Tshs with an average of 1,741,968Tsh was generated and contributed to the public secondary schools’ 2017 budget. The money generated was used to finance motivational strategies, hiring part time teachers, buying teaching and learning materials. Also the study found that lack of capital, lack of entrepreneurship knowledge, lack of transparency, misuse of fund generated, theft and destruction of SIGPs were the challenges facing SIGPs. The study disclosed that transparency over SIGPs running, hiring full time workers, having SIGPs officer/coordinator at the district level were the possible remedies suggested. The study recommended that, there is a need for the government to re-introduce self-reliance policy in the public secondary schools so that schools may have income generating activities that will be the supplementing school budget. There is also need for the Tanzanian education training colleges and universities that offer education training, to reform their curricula which will allow introduction of school-income generating projects’ management course to be offered. Also, there is a need for the government and policy planners to think on having school-income generating officer/coordinator at the district level who will be specifically responsible to prepare seminars, entrepreneurship trainings, and workshops for SIGPs teachers in the district.