Assessing the Relevance of Education for Self-Reliance in Public Secondary Schools in Meru District Council in Arusha-Tanzania

Education for self-reliance has been in practice in Tanzania for several years since 1967. The country made reforms in various education policies and programs to ensure the provision of Education for Self-Reliance (ESR) in secondary schools to realize national education objectives. This study sought to demonstrate the relevance of ESR in secondary schools on helping students to have independent living after graduation. The study was guided by the following objectives, to assess the relevance of education for self-reliance and to ascertain the subjects empowering students in self-reliance in secondary schools. The study adopted the human capital theory developed in 1776 and adopted by Theodor Schultz in the field of education in 1969. The study adopted a mixed research approach and convergent parallel research design to collate data. A sample size of 192 informants used to provide data in quantitative and qualitative terms. Quantitative data were analyzed with the support of SPSS program version 20, while qualitative data analyzed through coding, categories and themes. Content and face validity of the instrument observed and reliability tested in split-half system to obtain 0.80 correlation coefficience that showed the research instruments were valid and reliable. The findings postulated that ESR was relevant as it helps students to alleviate poverty, create employment, increase confidence, promote students’ knowledge and skills and free them from crimes and immoralities after graduation. Also, the researcher found that physical education, music, fine arts, commerce, business studies and agriculture were very crucial in empowering students in self-reliance, although, teachers did not teach self-reliance subjects in public secondary schools. Therefore students completed secondary schools with inadequate skills for self-reliance and led to unemployment, engaging in crimes and failure to seize opportunities around. The researcher further recommended that the Ministry of Education Science and Technology contrive educational policy framework to emphasize the teaching of ESR subjects in secondary schools. Also, training and retraining of teachers in self-reliance could be an effective way to provide ESR in school.