Transport problems for students and their effects on attendance in community secondary schools in Dar es salaam city, Tanzania

Regular school attendance is a crucial factor in education success. It is critically important since students who miss school or skip subject miss out on carefully planned sequences of instructions. This study investigates transportation problems for students in Dar es Salaam city. It focuses on the distance a student travels from home to school, students transportation cost and the effects of transportation problems on student school attendance. The data was collected using survey, in which random and purposive sampling utilized. Six hundred students and eighteen administrators from community secondary schools in Temeke Municipality participated in the study. The primary data was collected from students and school administrators by using questionnaires and face to face interviews respectively. Field survey took place in February and March 2014. Analysis of data employed triangulation whereby percentages have been used as statistical technique to analyze the data. The findings indicate that transportation system has significant effects on students’ school attendance. Some students miss first periods in the morning, escape afternoon sessions as they try to get transport, skip school day due to lack of bus fare, beg for money and private cars assistance which put them into temptations and the traps of devils as well as harassment from bus operators. The study recommends that government should organize more than two wards which are adjacent to apply central place theory to build comprehensive secondary school to accommodate many students, the LGAs have to provide shuttle buses for the students to move to and from the students’ residence by appointing drop and pick points, to use space available in those community schools located in remoteness to build hostels or boarding schools, to enroll students based on the nearest schools where individual lives and to encourage good relationship between teachers and parents in order to reveal and report students who hide outside the school as well as to provide financial aid to students who unable to afford transportation expenses.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

The Open University of Tanzania

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Mugoro, Johanes

• 370 Education

Language dc:language

en