Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of different approaches used by school leadership in enhancing secondary school students’ moral development in Tanzania, as well as respective challenges faced by school leaders during the implementation process. Design/methodology/approach The study used a qualitative research approach with a single case study design, involving a total of 44 participants. Purposive and convenience sampling techniques were used to obtain the sample of participants. Interviews, focus group discussions and documentary reviews were used as data collection methods. The study was guided by two objectives, namely, to assess the effectiveness of the approaches used for developing students’ morals and to find out the challenges that school leaders face when developing students’ morals. The study findings were analysed thematically. Findings The study revealed several approaches used for developing students’ morals. Some of the approaches include the use of fines, punishment and rewards. Other approaches were religious unions and students clubs, using NGOs like CAMFED, and adopting civil force. Moreover, the study disclosed that most of the approaches were not very effective due to constraints that faced school leadership when developing students’ morals. Some of the constraints are insufficient resources, educational policies and poor cooperation of parents. The study recommends that special regular classes for moral values should be introduced in schools. Also, moral education should be provided to community members so that they can abandon inappropriate cultures for effective students’ moral development. Originality/value This study is original because it gathers information from natural settings by involving actors in real-life situations regarding the subject under study. Communities need to be educated about morality to abandon inappropriate cultural practices.
Bahati et al. (Mon,) studied this question.