Research
An Assessment of Family-School Collaboration toward Childrens Moral Development in Tanzania: Do they Speak the Same Language?
The process of nurturing children’s moral development in the contemporary social and globalized world calls for closer cooperation among various participants who often interact with children. The extent of stakeholders’ collaboration on this aspect in the Tanzanian context is not well known. The objectives of this study were twofold: First, it sought to ascertain how parents and teachers’ understanding of collaboration toward children’s moral development influenced their efforts towards children’s moral development. Second, it sought to assess the congruence of strategies employed to enhance children’s moral development among parents and teachers. The study was conducted in two primary schools in Lushoto district, Tanga region in Tanzania, East Africa. It involved fifteen (15) participants including two head teachers, four teachers who were members of the schools’ committee, four religion teachers, four parents and one coordinator of the Non-Government Organization (NGO) that supports education in primary schools. The interview, focus group discussion and documentary review methods of the qualitative research tradition were employed to gather data and data were analyzed thematically. The resultsshowed that participants’ understanding of the collaboration did not translate into collaborative actions and thus, they did not work in concert to promote children’s moral development. It was also realized that the strategies for enhancing children’s moral development were inconsistent, incongruent and oldfashioned. The study provides some recommendations.
