Relationship between school expenditure and primary school pupils’ academic performance in selected districts in Kagera region.

This study sought to establish relationship between selected public school expenditure and primary school pupils’ academic performance in selected districts in Kagera region. Specifically, the study sought to: Analyze pupils performance in PSLE and the total school expenditure; Establish the relationship between pupils performance in PSLE and the school expenditure; and compare pupils performance in PSLE by school location whether rural and urban. The study was conducted in 115 out of 161 public primary schools and stratified random sampling was used in selecting respondents. Questionnaires and documentary review were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics whereby multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between school expenditure and pupils academic performance in PSLE. Further, t-test was used to compare pupils’ academic performance in PSLE between rural and urban schools. The findings of the study revealed that, the linear regression model showed a low explanatory power in explaining the variations of pupils’ academic performance in PSLE. Among of the school expenditure variables, only per pupil operating cost variable was statistically significant and contributed significantly to pupils’ academic performance in PSLE. The differences on the pupils’ academic performance in PSLE between rural and urban schools were not statistically significant. The study concludes that school outcomes as expressed by pupils’ academic performance in PSLE is a complexity of multivariate variables, thus it cannot be sufficiently explained completely by few selected variables. Indeed, finance is necessary to run a school but it is not sufficient by itself. The study recommends that the government should ensure that there is equality in the allocation of funds to cover the school expenditure that have high marginal productivity in schools by location. It is further recommended that studies should be conducted to investigate other factors other than operating expenditure that significantly contribute to the variation of students’ academic performance in PSLE in public primary schools in Tanzania.