Assessing secondary school student engagement with schooling in two coastal regions of Tanzania : an empirical study in the context of equality of educational opportunity

Abstract

The study investigated student engagement with schooling in relation to students’ individual characteristics and school contextual variables in order to determine the equality of educational opportunity available to secondary school students. The study looked at government secondary school students from randomly selected schools in four districts in the Mtwara and Dar es Salaam regions. Survey data from 1031 students was analysed using percentages, the independent t-test, one-way ANOVA and cross-tabulation. The study found high level of student engagement among all students, although some discrepancies appeared when students were sorted according to gender, age group, class level, school category, and school location. Female students showed a higher level of engagement than male students, students aged 15 and below showed lower engagement than students in other age groups, students in form two showed lower engagement than students in other forms and students from Mtwara showed higher engagement than students from Dar es Salaam. Students in normal secondary schools (NSS) demonstrated higher behavioural engagement than those in secondary schools with advanced level education (SSAL), across all engagement constructs. Other engagement constructs showed similar levels of engagement, implying that students take advantage of educational opportunities presented to them to an equal extent; this in turn signifies that there is equality of educational opportunity among these students. Student engagement is thus a means of understanding students’ participation across the whole of their experience of schooling, and also a means of realizing equality of educational opportunity.