The effectiveness of school committees in improving the management and supervision of financial resources allocated to primary schools in Tanzania: a comparative study of Ilala rural and urban districts, Dar es Salaam

This study examined the effectiveness of school committees in improving the management and supervision of financial resources allocated to primary schools in Ilala Rural and Urban districts, Dar es Salaam Region in Tanzania. More specifically, the study had three objectives: Firstly, determine whether or not school committees exist in both Urban and Rural schools; secondly, examine the contribution of school committees to the management and supervision of school financial resources; thirdly, investigate the effectiveness of school committees in both rural and urban public primary schools in Ilala District. The study used both qualitative and quantitative approaches as well as the survey design. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, and documentary review. Some 242 respondents including teachers, head teachers, parents, school committee members and the Ilala District Education Officer were involved. These respondents were sampled through simple random, stratified random and purposive sampling techniques. Data were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The study revealed that school committees do exist and operate in both urban and rural public primary schools, but they are characterised by incomplete structure composition particularly with no pupil representation. Furthermore, it was revealed that perceived contribution of school committees to the management and supervision of school financial resources were minimal. This was mainly due to inadequate knowledge about the roles and responsibilities of school committees, lack of enough planned and organised training programmes, poor attendance of meetings and a low level of education, especially in the rural areas. Consequently, it was revealed that school committees were regarded as not participating effectively in the management and supervision of school financial resources. The study comments that the government should mobilise enough funds to properly organise planned training programmes for the school committee members. Term of References (ToR) for school committees should be circulated to all primary schools. The policy should involve strategies to also involve pupils in school committees. Furthermore, the government should provide room and mandate for school committees to be able to reallocate funds if the need arises. Other studies are recommended to cover wider geographical area and private school settings and on why pupils are not involved in school committees.