PERCEPTIONS OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH MEMBERS TOWARDS ADVENTIST PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN EASTERN TANZANIA CONFERENCE: IMPLICATIONS FOR ENROLLMENT
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Date
2015-02
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Abstract
Despite the numerical growth of Seventh-day Adventist church membership in the
Eastern Tanzania Conference, for the past ten years of existence of Adventist primary
schools, there has not been a corresponding increase in enrolment of Adventist pupils in
these schools. This study was conducted in order to study the perceptions of church
members towards the Adventist primary schools in the territory in order to determine
whether it has any implications for enrollment. The study was both qualitative and
quantitative in nature and used a descriptive research approach with a cross-sectional
design. Both primary and secondary data were collected from a sample of 400 randomly
selected church members out of a population of 53,790. Descriptive statistics were used to
analyse the data. One way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), followed by Post hoc tests,
was also employed to determine if there is significant difference between the attitudes of
church members with and those without children in Adventist primary schools. The
reasons mentioned by the respondents for not sending their children to Adventist primary
schools include high school fees, poor academic performance, school location, lack of
awareness of Adventist education, lack of promotion strategies and poor school
administration. However, Adventist schools in ETC are perceived to have strengths,
which include spiritual emphasis, provision of wholistic education and quality education,
nutritious food, teaching of good morals and self confident pupils. It is concluded that
Adventist primary schools in ETC are both positively and negatively perceived which has
positive and negative implications on enrolment. In order to increase enrolment in the
schools, it is recommended that the schools have to address the things which have been
identified to have effect on enrolment and retention of pupils.