The Management of Tutorial Teaching Compassion Assisted Child Ministry Centers in Arusha Town, Tanzania A Critical Assessment

Abstract

This study sought to investigate the management of tutorial teaching in the Compassion assisted churches in Arusha Town. Samples of 15 Compassion assisted child ministry centers from Arusha Town were purposively selected. Score sheet forms were developed and used to collect academic reports (examination marks) of 20 children from each of the 15 projects, giving a total of 300 Compassion assisted children. The children were also purposively selected from among those in grades 4, 5, 6 and 7 in public primary schools and who were attending tutorial programs at these child ministry centers. A questionnaire was developed and administered to the church leaders, tutorial teachers, project workers, and 20 parents of children attending tutorials. Focus group discussion was conducted involving 20 children also attending tutorials. The data from the questionnaires was analyzed using the SPSS (version 10.0). The study found that, on average, the time allocated for tutorial is sufficient and the projects engaged a sufficient number of tutorial teachers. The church leaders and the project workers rated the commitment of the tutorial teachers as high or very high but this is to be doubted as there was much time wastage and the performance of the children did not improve that much. Furthermore, it was found that the organization, management and supervision of the tutorial teaching by the church leaders was inadequate and the projects did not have sufficient teaching/learning facilities. In light of these findings, the following are some of the recommendations made. A further study on the quality of the tutorial teaching process is needed, to establish factors that need to be changed, in order for the children to get optimum benefit from the tutorials. There is also need to further build the capacity of the local church leadership in appropriate organization and management of the tutorial teaching program. The 108 Abstracts Compassion's church partners in Arusha need to put in place all the necessary teaching/learning facilities including adequate classroom space, enough textbooks and supplementary reading material, basic teaching aids such as maps, and desks, and finally the churches may need to create awareness among the parents of their role in the learning of their children.