The effect of home environment on secondary school performance: the case of Zanzibar regions

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the home environment on girls' academic performance in secondary schools in Zanzibar. The study strove to identify home environmental factors based on work-habits, parental guidance and support, intellectual stimulation at home and parental attitudes and expectations, and to see how these affected girls academic performance in school. Dave's Model developed by Bloom (1980) was adopted to guide the study. The study was conducted in four secondary schools with 145 respondents who included students, parents, teachers, head teachers and ministry officials. Data was collected through questionnaires, interview schedules, documentation and observation. Data collected were subjected to the calculation of frequencies and percentages and also to content analysis.The findings of the study indicated that rural or urban areas' home work-habits affected students' academic performance. Due to the perception of gender roles in the researched area, work habits had a greater effect on girls compared to boys.The findings also indicated that girls spent less time on academic matters after school hours than boys. Although both girls and boys were equally exposed to the mass media, accessibility to them was less for girls compared to boys. The findings show that the majority (80%) of parents felt that there was a need to educate both girls and boys, but there were also parents who thought that girls did not need higher education and therefore did not take much effort to encourage them.On the basis of the findings and conclusions it recommended that parents should provide equal time for studying after school hours to both boys and girls. However, improvement will be realised only if parents are encouraged to change their attitudes so that they can engage in more educationally relevant activities with their children. The society's covert practices which change girls' study habits and aspirations should be eliminated. Also parent-teacher relationships should be improved as these are vital for better performance.With regard to further research, it was recommended among other things that a study be conducted to assess the pros and cons of marriage while girls are still at school.