Community Understanding of Fee Free Education Policy and their Contribution to the Improvement of Education: A Case of Hanang District in Manyara Region, Tanzania.

This study was set to explore the community contribution to the improvement of secondary education in Hanang’ district in Manyara Region. Specifically, the study explored the understanding of the community about fee free policy in secondary education; their contribution in the provision of quality secondary education; and the challenges that the schools face as they involve the local communities to support the schools in Hanang’ district. Mixed research approach and descriptive design were used to get in-depth information from the teachers, students and the parents.Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data from a total of 272 research participants who comprised of 60 teachers, 202 students, and 10 parents who were purposively and simple random sampled from Hanang district. Findings revealed that, there was varying understanding of fee free education policy among the community members in secondary schools in Hanang district. While the majority of the parents understood the policy as relieving them from contributing to their children’s education, some did not believe there was something like free education as they were required to pay other contributions. The majority of the teachers understood it as the government strategy to extend education to all the children despite their social economic status. Moreover, the study found that the majority of the parents were not ready to support the schools. The major challenges that the schools face as lack of clear policy on mobilization of community to participate in the school improvement. The study recommends that government to raise community awareness of their role in supporting education. For further studies, the research recommends other investigation on how the funds allocated to improve public secondary schools are used. Keywords: Fee free education policy, parent-school support, quality educatio