Assessment of factors leading to teachers' absente i m in public secondary schools in Rungwe district

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Date
2016
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Dar es Salaam
Abstract
The study assessed factors leading to teachers' absenteeism in public secondary schools in Rungwe District. Specifically, the study had three objectives which were to examine factors leading to teachers' absenteeism, their effects and find out the measures which could be taken to overcome teacher absenteeism in public secondary schools in Rungwe. The study employed mixed research approach. Data collection methods included interviews, questionnaires, observation and documentary review. Respondents were 108, consisting of 48 teachers, 48 students as well as 6 heads of schools from 6 public secondary schools, 3 Ward Education Coordinator (WEC), 1 School Inspector, 1 District Secondary Education Officer (DSEO) and 1 District Secretary of Teachers Service Department (TSD). All participants, except teachers were purposefully sampled while teachers were randomly sampled. Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data while quantitative data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 16.0. The findings of the study indicated that the major factors which lead to teachers' absenteeism in public secondary schools were poor working conditions, lack of motivations, low salary, lack of school housing facilities, transport, health and family/social problems, poor leadership style, laziness among teachers and student indiscipline. Teachers' absenteeism resulted to decrease of instruction time, truancy and dropouts, low coverage of the syllabi, increase of conflicts between absentees and the school heads, lack of guidance and counselling and finally poor academic performance. The study recommends that the villages/streets, wards, district and region level should make sure that teachers working conditions are improved. Moreover the teachers who are working in remote areas have to be highly motivated. The study also recommends that the Ministry of Education and Vocation Training has to ensure that reference books in secondary schools are written for specific subjects. This will help the ministry the current problem in which there has been too much multiplicity of reference books for the same subject due to unrestricted liberalism in the education sector.
Description
Available in print form, EAF collection, Dr. Wilbert Chagula Library, class mark ( THS EAF LB2843.L4K58 )
Keywords
Teachers,, Leaves of absence, Absenteeism (labour), Public schools, Rungwe district
Citation
Kiwale, T.K ( 2016 ) Assessment of factors leading to teachers' absente i m in public secondary schools in Rungwe district, Masters dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam.