Public secondary education costs and orphans’ schooling in Songea district Tanzania mainland

The study investigated public secondary education costs and orphans’ schooling in Songea district Tanzania mainland. It identified who actually met the orphans’ cost of schooling and assessed the adequacy of financial support in meeting the direct costs of schooling. Finally it examined the extent to which the financial support determined the orphans’ enrolment, retention and completion of ordinary level secondary school. Qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed to facilitate the study using an exploratory mixed study design. Data were collected from a sample of 116 respondents. Findings revealed that the financing of ophans to meet the costs of their schooling in public ordinary level secondary schools was a combined effort from different education stakeholders. However, the processes associated with provision of financial support to meet orphans’ costs of schooling were too bureaucratic and not known by most of the needy orphans. It was also revealed that the financial support offered to meet the orphans’ cost of schooling was inadequate to reach all the needy orphan students in the district as the number of the needy orphan students exceeded the sponsors’ ability to pay. It was recommended that, addressing the costs of schooling for the needy orphans should be regarded as an investment for the countries’ economic health and future political stability rather than consumption because orphans and vulnerable children are potentially the future human capital. Therefore, the district government authority has to establish the Education Trust Fund (ETF) and earmark a proportion of cess tax on some of the prominent farm produce in Songea district for example maize and tobacco for the purpose of funding education whereby priority would be on meeting the costs of schooling for the needy orphans.