Influence Of Teachers’ Moonlighting On Teaching In Tanzanian Secondary Schools: A Case Of Selected Secondary Schools In Dar Es Salaam City

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the influence of teachers moonlighting on teaching in Tanzanian Secondary Schools. The study was conducted in 18 public secondary schools of Ubungo and Kigamboni municipalities of Dar es Salaam city. The study also involved 6 heads of school, 10 academic masters/mistresses, 137 classroom teachers, teachers- moonlighter 10, and 3 WEOs. The study further involved 2 district TSC officials and 1 zonal SQA. Heads of school, WEOs, district TSC, and zonal SQA were sampled through purposive sampling. Classroom teachers and academic masters/mistresses were sampled through simple random sampling and snowball sampling. Through descriptive design under mixed methods approach, the researcher was able to collect data through questionnaires, interviews, and FGDs. The study findings revealed that teachers had a number of moonlighting practices that were generating extra income to cover the salary gap. Moonlighting practices such as part-time teaching, petty business, retail shops, catering services, and selling snacks during and after school hours were found to be the common practices undertaken by teachers in public secondary schools. Again, the study finding revealed that teachers’ moonlighting has positive and negative outcome. It was found that teachers’ moonlighting was compromising time for classroom instructions. On the other hand, teachers’ moonlighting was found to increase teaching morale to teachers who moonlight .Furthermore, the findings from this study reveal that teachers were employing strategies like late coming to school, and misuse of sick leave. Based on the study findings, it is concluded that, there is a need of finding the best way to regulate moonlighting practices among secondary school teachers so that they are in the position of doing other income-generating activities in the environment that does not compromise teaching or producing dysfunctional conflicts in schools. Moreover, some recommendations were made on how to improve practices, policy-driven solution and future research. Recommendations were made to improve practice and policy-driven solution. Furthermore, recommendation for further research has been made to undertake studies on teachers’ moonlighting and teaching morale, relationship between financial constraint and teachers’ moonlighting, teacher attrition and teachers’ moonlighting, and to their perception on moonlighting.