Strategies of Improving Decision-Making in Secondary Schools in Tanzania: Experiences from Education Stakeholders of Tabora Region

Maintaining tasks of curriculum implementation in schools very important. This is based on the fact that the main function of a school is to offer teaching, learning and assessment to students. The school to achieve the goal of the intended curriculum, it should have good decision-making strategies. This paper intended to explore the strategies used to improve decision making in secondary schools in Tanzania effective curriculum implementation. The study used a mixed method research approach together coupled with sequential explanatory research design. The total of 394 informants were used involved in this study and data were collected through questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussion. The participants involved in this study consist of District Education Officers (DEO), heads of secondary schools, teachers, students and parents. The study findings show that schools can, to a larger extent, succeed in decision making through rational decision-making strategies which are characterized by participatory decision making, adherence to country?s education policy and frequent training among heads of schools. The study recommended that heads of schools should abide by six stages of rational decision-making namely, identification of existing problems, gathering relevant information about problems, identification of alternative solutions, choosing best alternative solutions and making implementation and making evaluation about the whole decision making process. The referred stages ensure effective curriculum implementation decision making process among schools. The study also recommended that heads of schools should make decisions based on participatory way. It was further recommended that the Ministry of Education should conduct regular training on school supervision among heads of schools. Therefore, this study concluded that that decision making strategies should be carefully chosen and their implementation should be done step-by-step and all school stakeholders should be given chance to participate in decision-making regarding classroom teaching and learning and assessment mode.