Capitation Grant Spending: Adherence to Good Governance Principles in Primary Schools in Morogoro Region, Tanzania

Abstract

The capitation grant governance in Government primary schools in Tanzania has been extended to parents through the democratically elected school committee members with expectation that the capitation grant would be spent well. However, there have been incidents of mismanagement of the grant and information on the governing aspect of the school committees is scanty. Hence, based on this problem, the research on which this paper is based was conducted in Morogoro Region from August, 2014 to March 2015. The study employed quantitative and qualitative data to examine the extent to which Government primary schools in the study area adhere to good governance principles in their capitation grant spending. The study found that the weighted means of good governance attributes of effectiveness (3.9), rule of law (3.4), and accountability (3.9) were below the extremely good range of 4.5-5.0. The results demonstrate the need to develop strategies to improve capitation grant governance in Government primary schools.

Keywords: Capitation grant, good governance, school committee.