Investigation of Factors Hindering Quality Education in Secondary Schools in Mbeya, Tanzania

Abstract

Quality education is what brings forth manifestable development of any country. We all know that education is a pillar of development of all countries the world over. When we preach education, we normally mean quality education-an education that can provide answers to the problems that we face in our environment. The quest for quality education has become imperative in this modern world. The importance gain legitimacy due to the advancement of technology, which does both, hampering and boosting education, pending to the environmental setting.  This article attempts to investigate factors that hinder quality education in Tanzania. It has adopted a qualitative research design, with interview as the main data collection strategy.  The study is ethnographic, in the sense that it searches solution to the known problem.  Questions have been the modal for stemming the study. Hence, no hypothesis was developed. The researcher has used scholarly group to come up with the findings. Twenty schools were visited and thus twenty scholarly groups consisting of teachers were the responsive sample for the study. The study used purposive sampling method, where only teachers employed with the respective schools formed the scholarly group for interview. Answers were on agreement of the entire group.  The study has revealed that there are several factors, which have contributed to the failure of form four students.  Those related to inconformity between numbers of teachers versus students, poor quality of textbooks, poor products of pupils joining secondary schools, absence of reliable teachers guide, absence of action based exams, absence of labs, among others. The second set are factors related to the administration of education, which include decision of removing  standard four and form two exams, decision to liberate textbooks used in the entire cadre of primary and secondary education among others.