The Opportunities of a Futuristic Private Secondary School Management System in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper explores the opportunities to fill the demands of the contemporary futuristic school in the context of a developing nation. Qualitative approaches were used to collect data that answered a primary research question; “What are the opportunities available for strengthening the management system of private secondary schools in Iringa Region, Tanzania?”. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from school managers, head teachers, teachers, and parents that were purposefully selected, while focus group discussions were administered to students in private secondary schools. The findings indicated that among the several opportunities available, strategic geographic location of a school, and creation of better learning space and time, are key to enrolling an adequate number of students, and enable the teachers and learners to do better in a teaching and learning process. School management systems performance depended on the user-fees; therefore, high enrolment rates were related to fiscal power for survival and sustainability of private schools. While the school community support offers school capacity to implement the education curriculum, differentiated supervision of teachers assures the expected school academic achievements. Nonetheless, good country policies favoring private players investing in secondary education services, and availability of higher learning institutions to absorb adequate number of secondary school graduates offer an advantage to investors in the private secondary school sector. The findings have also indicated that adequacy of the school supplies and capacity to remunerate teachers depends on the number of students enrolled in a school year. Some recommendations are suggested for practices and further research.