ABSENTEEISM AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF GIRL CHILD IN COMMUNITY SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN MOROGORO DISTRICT COUNCIL, TANZANIA

Abstract

This study set to determine the influence of absenteeism on academic performance among girl child in community secondary schools in Morogoro District, Tanzania. The study was guided by the following objectives; to examine the level of absenteeism of the girl child in community secondary schools, to determine the factors that cause girl child’s absenteeism, to determine the level of girl child’s academic performance in community secondary schools and to determine the relationship between absenteeism and academic performance among female students in community secondary schools. The findings of the study are expected to be useful to the organization, country, policy makers, researchers and all education stakeholders by identifying problem areas and take corrective measures in order to reduce absenteeism rate among girls in the society hence improve their academic performance. Both quantitative and qualitative descriptive approaches were adopted for this research by using questionnaire, interview guide and secondary data. Simple random sampling technique was used in obtaining a sample size of 132 respondents while a purposeful sampling technique was used to sample the twelve class teachers. The study compared two groups of students with their performance. The first group was low level absentees and the second were high level absentees. Using independent t test, the academic performance in terms of exam scores and homework scores were compared for the high and low attendees. The results indicated that high level absentees group (M = 407, SD = 204) performed poorer than the high level attendees in homework with t (109.99) = 6.492, P = .000. Several factors grouped under social economic, cultural and school related interrupt the regular schooling of the girl child and therefore several recommendations were suggested.