Coping with inadequacy: understanding the effects of central teacher recruitment in six ward secondary schools in Tanzania

Decentralization by devolution is the means to transfer the responsibilities for service provision to the grassroots levels in Tanzania. The aim of this policy is to deal with the stagnation in the development of, among other things, secondary education. Despite this policy, Tanzania still provides a strong top-down influence on education. This study is about the effects of the central influence on the recruitment of teachers in secondary education. For this research, six ward secondary schools were visited. The dissertation reveals that the centralized teacher recruitment within the initiative to decentralize secondary education has failed to achieve its claimed objective of redressing the inequalities in the deployment of teachers in the country. As a result, the schools have structured their internal operations in order that they cope with inadequacy. The dissertation recommends therefore that the actual needs of schools in terms of the types of teachers required should be given consideration when teachers are posted in schools.