Assessing School Community Involvement in Implementing School Summary Report Cards A Case study of Mpanda District in Katavi Region, Tanzania

Abstract

We describe here a study that assessed school community involvement in implementing a School Summary Report Card (SSRC) in public secondary schools: in Mpanda District in Katavi Region, Tanzania. The study had three specific objectives, which were to evaluate the awareness of the school community in the implementation of SSRC in school progress, examine the level of community participation in the implementation of SSRC, and explore the challenges of implementing SSRC. The study was guided by an open systems theory which originated from the General System Theory and approach by Ludwing Von Bertalanffy, in 1950s after World War II (Scott & Davis, 2016). Data were collected through questionnaires to 45 teachers; interviews with 5 heads of schools, 3 Ward Educational Officers, and 1 District School Quality Assurance Officer. Focused Group Discussions were conducted with 50 students and 35 community members. We also performed school observation and documents review. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the majority of the teachers and community members were not made aware of the use of SSRC. Low involvement of the school community members in the implementation of SSRC and also there varying interpretations of common symbols in the SSRC and mismatch between ratings of the SSRC indicators and the final valuation of the SSRC. The study recommends the conduction of a broader sensitization of the school community on what constitutes SSRC, and how to implement it to bring about an impact on the school and community