Community involvement in planning and decision making for democratization of Education in Bagamoyo district community secondary schools.

This study examines community involvement in planning and decision making for democratization of education in Tanzania at Bagamoyo district community secondary schools .The study aimed at exploring provision of education policy that support decentralization policy in community secondary schools, to establish perceptions on the involvement of parents and the community in the planning and decision making process of school activities in Tanzania, to examine the ways and methods used to promote parents and community involvement in planning and decision making in community secondary schools, to explore the extent to which decentralization has influenced parents and community involvement in community secondary schools. The research approach used was qualitative approach while the research design used was case study of Bagamoyo district. The data analysis strategies used was summarizing the content by narration of the information provided. Data were collected from a sample of 92 respondents. Sample techniques used were purposive, convenience and simple randomly sampling techniques. The study used interview, focus group discussion, observation and documentation in collecting data. The study findings are the government initiated various education policies which aimed to improve the education in. The perceptions of parents on community involvement in planning and decision making in education was negative because of lack of knowledge and skills in planning and decision making. On the extent decentralization policy influenced parents and community involvement, it was revealed that awareness on the education decentralization was low. Based on the study findings it was concluded that, parents and community involvement in planning and decision making in community secondary schools is minimal. It is recommended that parents and community members should be involved from the initial stages of policy formulation in order to know their importance of community participation in policy implementation