The influence of the participatory management approach on students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Singida rural district, Tanzania

The study sought to establish the influence of participatory management approach on students’ academic performance in community-based public secondary schools in Singida Rural District. The objectives were: to determine the association between participatory management approach and students academic performance; investigate the strategies school heads use through participatory management approach to ensure school based educational stakeholders participate in managing schools; examined the participatory management mechanisms schools deploy to galvanize school resources from the community and explore the constraints that school heads encounter when implementing participatory management approach. The study used both qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Specifically it employed a case study design. The study used systematic, simple random and purposive sampling techniques to obtain 13 rural public ward secondary schools from which a sample of 212 respondents comprising school heads, teachers, student leaders and school board members was drawn. Data were collected through interviews, questionnaires and documentary reviews. The data were and analyzed through statistical measure of T- test analysis and content analysis. The findings of the study indicated a weak inverse statistical significance between participatory management approach and students academic performance {since. t= -0.0441 (one tailed) < 1.796}. The result implies very weak inverse statistical significance at Thus, there was a weak influence of participatory management approach on student’s academic performance. The study established that meetings and events were the main strategies used to involve school-based stakeholders in school management. Also monetary contributions, materials contributions and labour in kind were mechanisms that school heads used to draw resources from the community through participatory management approach to influence students’ academic performance. The study further found that poverty and ignorance, politics and some education policies were impediments to effective participatory school management. Based on the research findings and conclusions, the researcher recommends educational stakeholders to develop comprehensive strategies to improve school capacity in terms of dealings with other factors like educational input, process and learners intrinsic motivation to learning. The stakeholders should also provide supportive infrastructural set up. The government should also initiate capacity building through ongoing pre-service and in-service training programmes to empower school heads to deal with challenges they face in implementing participatory management proactively to ensure such management enhances students’ academic performance. In addition, there was a need to provide mass education to raise public awareness on participatory management in education management to create a supportive environment for students’ academic performance, linked by multifaceted dimensions linked to both home and school.