Factors Causing Students' Drop out from Education Programmes at the Open University of Tanzania: a Case of Tanga Region Centre
The study on factors causing students' dropout from the Open University of Tanzania (OUT) focused on selected districts of Tanga Region. The selected districts are Korogwe, Handeni, Lushoto, Muheza and Tanga Urban. The main instruments for data collection were interview guides and focused group discussion (FGD). The result of the study showed that, students of the OUT in Tanga region dropped out from education programmes due to students' personal factors. Under this category, students dropped out due to failure to pay tuition fees, the need for realizing personal objectives e.g. promotion while studying at OUT, students' lack of seriousness in OUT studies, family barriers, students failing to write assignments and difficulty incomprehending some of the OUT courses such as Philosophy of Education (OED102) and Calculus 1 (OMTI0l). The second category of factors which caused OUT students' dropout in Tanga Region were those related to work environments. Under this category, students were found to dropout of the education programmes of education due to excessive teaching load at work places, collision of students' duties and OUT schedule and discouraging work places culture. The OUT administration was not found to cause students' dropout in Tanga region. This study recommends that, the Open University of Tanzania needs to increase face-to-face sessions at least once every month. Another recommendation was the government through its ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) to offer to OUT students, the necessary study requirements such as money for buying books. Lastly, the organization managers must take into consideration the Government Circular no.1 of 2003, which directs them to give OUT students enough time for study
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