UNIVERSTY OF DAR ES SALAAM

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

COURSE TITLE

COMPARATIVE EDUCATION

COURSE CODE

EF 601

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

DR SARAKIKYA.

STUDENT NAME

PUYA BAKARI K.

REG NO

2015-06-00601

DEGREE PROGRAMME

MASTER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION MA (Ed) REGULAR

Individual Assignment

Major Paper

How Sports and Games Help To Reduce Sense of Not Belonging and Not Related as the Causes
of School Dropout Among Secondary school students in Tanzania and Kenya

Introduction
Sports is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team
competes against another or others for entertainment (oxford)
Sport is an outdoor or indoor game, competition, or activity needing physical effort and skill and
usually carried on according to rules.
Sport gives people enjoyment, happiness, friendship, satisfaction, health, fitness, popularity,
recognition, the feeling of victory and success, but on the other hand, it may be boring, cause
sadness, sorrow, disappointment, fatigue, exhaustion, injuries, illness, and in some cases even
death
Sports can be performed for the seek of Recreational or Competitive,
Recreational sport is also called sport for all and is done for various purposes, but mainly for fun
and entertainment in leisure time. An increasing number of people are becoming healthconscious and do recreational sport activities and various keep-fit exercises to maintain or
improve their physical as well as mental fitness and health, to affect their flexibility, to
strengthen their muscles and shape the body, to delay ageing symptoms, etc. Some people desire
to learn new skills or experience new feelings through sport activities. Some people might have
social reasons for their participation in sport including the need of integration, friendship, team
work, support, recognition
Competitive sport is done mainly for performance, for achieving good results in competitions,
defeating opponents and becoming the winner or record holder. People who do competitive sport
train hard and regularly and participate in various forms of competition. They are organised and
belong to different sport teams, clubs, associations or federations. The highest level of
competitive sport is elite sport (top performance sport). Elite athletes must sacrifice almost

everything to their sport. It lasts many years to become an excellent sportsman. Such a process
means years of hard every day training, effort and drudgery, years of pain and stress as well.
Financial and social background is a necessity. Elite athletes are often professionals who make
living through sport. They follow principles of sport training to make progress, including various
regeneration programmes. The elite sport is linked with a serious problem doping, the use of
illegal substances to improve performance.
Retrieved from
http://web.ftvs.cuni.cz/eknihy/jazyky/sportstudiesfundamentalterminologyinenglish/Texts/0dReferences.html
Dropout is defined as any student who leaves school for any reason before graduation or
completion of a program of studies without transferring to another elementary or secondary
school. (North Carolina 2010)
Sports are very important in educational institutions as it supports academic objectives.
This paper will deeply discuss How sports and games help to reduce sense of not belonging and
relatedness as cause of school dropout among secondary school student in Tanzania and Kenya.

Tanzania
Located in East Africa and has a population of 45 million. Its political capital is Dodoma, while
its main commercial city is Dar es Salaam. As Kiswahili is official language, it is used as the
medium of instruction in primary schools and is also taught as a subject. English is taught as a
subject from Standard Three onwards and is the medium of instruction in secondary schools and
other institutions of higher learning. All primary school textbooks, except English textbooks, are

written in Kiswahili. English textbooks are used in secondary schools and institutions of higher
learning.
The Tanzanian educational system is based on the 7-4-2-3 system: 7 years of primary school,
followed by four years of secondary school leading to Ordinary Level (0-level) exams in nine
subjects, followed by two more years leading to the Advanced Level (A-level) exams in nine
subjects, including General Studies. In the second year of secondary school, there is a national
assessment examination which allows those who pass to continue to study for an additional two
years. After those two years, students take the Certificate of Secondary Education Exam (CSEE),
held in November; the results come out in March of the following year. Two years later, A-level
exams are given. After the final year of secondary school - the thirteenth year - students can take
the Advanced Certificate examination, which is recognized all over the world. On the average, a
student can complete the Bachelor's degree in three years, although some majors require more
time.
KENYA
The Republic of Kenya lies along the equator on the east coast of Africa. It borders Sudan,
Ethiopia and Somalia to the north, Uganda to the west, and Tanzania to the south. Kenya is
divided into 47 counties following the enactment of the new constitution. The capital of Kenya is
Nairobi. The country covers an area of around 582,000 square kilometres. It has a population of
at least 41 million people. Kenyas two official languages are English and Kiswahili
In 1985 the 7-4-2-3 system was replaced with the current 8-4-4 educational system ,based on the
American educational system. This system consists of 8 years of primary school, 4 years of
secondary school and 4 years of higher education. The curriculum focuses on mathematics,
English and various vocational subjects. That includes a broad range of subjects aimed both at

pupils who will complete only their primary education and then enter the labour market, and
those pupils who plan to continue on to higher education. Children also attend 1 or 2 years of
pre-primary school before starting primary school. This is usually between the ages of 3 and 6.
Retrieved from

https://www.epnuffic.nl/en/publications/find-a-publication/education-system-

kenya.

What are the factor cause school dropouts?

There is much agreement among researchers, educators and policy makers that children of school
going age should remain in school until graduation. Yet, despite this agreement, still many
children show either low level of daily school attendance or leave school prematurely (Balfanz &
Legters2004; Oghuvbu, 2008). As such, low school-attendance and drop-out problem has been
shown to be an international concern since the past three decades (Patrick, 2008; Wotherspoon,
2004). Although students decision to attend poorly and eventually drop out of school is affected
by a number of complex factors, current studies have been using childrens sense of
disengagement from their colleagues; school systems and events partaking in the school to
explain the problem (Rumberger &Thomas 2000; Wotherspoon, 2004; Sulkowski, Demaray &
Lazarus, 2012). In this regard, previous studies regarding students engagement consider sense of
belonging and social-bonds as a predictor of academic functioning. The inference is that,
academic functioning and student school-attendance is greatly influenced by sense of belonging
among school-children. Therefore, efforts to connect students to schools and among students
themselves have been at the forefront of current initiatives to improve education effectiveness
(attendance and performance).

Theoretical underpinnings Belonging and Relatedness

Belonging as a need has been defined differently by scholars to refer to fundamental human
drives to form and maintain positive and significant interpersonal relationships (Baumeister &
Leary,1995). This definition is similar to that of Deci and Ryan (1991) who suggested that, the
need for belonging encompasses a person's strive to relate to, and care for others, to feel that
those others are relating authentically to one's self; and to feel a satisfying and coherent
involvement with the social world more generally (p. 243). Generally, although definitions
regarding the term belongingness differ, common to them is their attempt to refer it to the
individual inner feeling of being attached, related, connected and being regarded positively by
others in his/her social context.
Therefore, throughout this paper, relatedness and belongingness have been used interchangeably
to refer to significant interpersonal-relationships that exist among secondary school students.
Although few studies reported on the misuse of group-norms to develop delinquent and anti
social behaviours (e.g., Gilman, 2004 cited in Wilson, 2009; Fulign & Eclles, 1993 as cited by
Winne and Alexander 2006), there are many advantages accrued from developing sense of
belonging among students. Relatedness within a school context has been specifically measured
to be an important factor that could influence students retention (Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005;
Henchy,Cunningham & Bradley, 2009), and prevent unacceptable behaviours at school such as
truancy,violence and bullying (Osterman 2000; Dornbusch, Erickson, Laird, & Cigarettes, 2001;
Catalano,Oesterle, Fleming, & Hawkins, 2004). Grounded on this connection is the fact that,
belongingness isa requisite for the development of self-esteem and eventually self-perceptions of
an individual(Maslow 1943; Osterman, 2000; Tinto, 1993). This argument suggests further that,
learning relies much on interpersonal relations. As such if a student feels valued and accepted by

his or her colleagues, he or she is more likely to show enthusiasm and develop positive selfconcepts. This in turn can create a powerful drive for students to come to school, persist and
attain an award they are studying for; particularly for those students who feel alienated, those
who experience difficulties with their work; and those who find it hard to meet school
expectations. In a long-run, current studies (e.g., Eccles & Fredricks, 2006; Wang & Holcombe,
2010; Blomfield & Barber, 2010) have shown that a student with improved psychological
construct of relatedness shows improved academic scores and grades. Thus, a sense of belonging
remains a key predictor and mediator of academic achievement.
For an individual to feel related to others, he or she demands: (i) frequent and affectively
pleasant interactions with others; and (ii) a need to observe such interactions in the context of a
temporally stable and enduring context. Because of the above findings and arguments, one of the
current techniques used to prevent students disengagement or loneliness is therefore to allow
them to use their free time through extracurricular activities, specifically games and sports
(Eaton & Enn, 1986;Faucette, 1995; Taylor et al., 2011). Putting much emphasis on that, the 7th
World Conference on Sports, Education and Culture (2010) elaborated that children choose to
spend their leisure time in playing. Thus provision of opportunities for playing and other
extracurricular activities give children chances to share age-related ideas, stories and
opportunities for them to correct possible mistakes without shy or fear.

LITREATURES ON HOW SPORTS AND GAMES AFFECT STUDENTS BEHAVIOUR

While research conducted over the past decade provide evidence that a sense of belonging to
school is critical to the success of students; and although sports and games have been sued to
stimulate sense of belonging and social-bonds among children, little research evidence exists as

to whether the nature (type and origin) of games/sports chosen affect students interest and
decision to engage in playing. Researchers and scholars such as Guest and Schneider (2003),
Vallerand (2004) and Rowe (2012) have shown that, while some children like formal activities
(i.e., relatively structured activities e.g., football, athletics or music), others like informal
designed activities (i.e., relatively less structured and leisure activities such as watching
television). These explanations show that the formal and informal activity-settings have different
influence on the attitude of students toward them, and the strength to which they can influence
the students decision to engage in them.

Establishment of Tanzania and Kenya Secondary School Sports Associations

In Tanzania, modern sports (i.e. football, netball, volleyball, basketball, and athletics) were at
first introduced in the missionary schools. Although hidden to this initiative was their objective
to improve students physical fitness and foster European civilization, in addition, sports and
games were introduced to motivate students daily school attendance. The belief was that, these
activities could attract many children (even the less-intelligent ones) to attend schools because:
(i) many children are naturally interested in playing with age-mates, and (ii) Sports and games
fall under the psychomotor domain thereby demand little of the childs cognitive skills. Knowing
the important role sports and games can play in motivating students attendance, soon after
independence, despite many curriculum changes and innovations introduced by the Tanzanian
Government, sports and games were left as part of extracurricular activities. At the level of the
school, as part of daily school timetables, these games and sports were introduced and allowed to
be played during the extra curricular hours. Grounded on the very objectives, in addition to
others, at the National level the Tanzanian Ministry of Education and Vocational Training

(MoEVT) introduced national-wide sports and games competitions among students:

UMISETAfor secondary school students; and UMITASHUTA for primary school students.
(Makinywa and Straton 2014)
UMISETA combine both public and private school all over the country to compete together from
various selected clusters. Those who will appear as the best players from their cluster selected to
join to the one team cluster which later plays with neighbor cluster to select best players which
will form the district cluster and finally formulate regional team which will compete with other
regional team.
Abolition of UMISSETA in Tanzania
In late 1996 The Tanzania Government through the Minister of education and culture Hon Joseph
Mungai abolish all sports and games activities in public school. This decision was announced as
the plan to remove all waste time that was consumed by sports and games and to provide broad
time for a student in effective study.
The Kenya secondary schools sports association (KSSSA) is an association that falls under the
ministry of education. KSSSA deals exclusively with secondary sports in Kenya, in both private
and public schools. Teachers schools are also included in their roster.

KSSSA main tasks include: Nurturing and developing sports talent when it is young, encouraging sports
in schools as a co-curricular activity, Developing an all rounded student both in academics and sports

In the Kenyan curriculum, sports are included formally through a subject called Physical
Education and allocate done period of forty minutes in the lower secondary section and two

periods in the upper secondary section. Less formally, every school is expected to have a games
department and a games teacher. (Ongonga and Okello 2010)

. The Current situation

After the abolition of sports and games in public school which led to the rise of institutional
school to take over the sports and games activities in the country such as Military school based
and Private school, The Government decide to bring back the sports and games activities in
public school. Umisseta return to public school but still face lot of challenges to achieve the
intended goals and objectives to the participants. The Current decision of freeze the Umiseta as
one strategies of the government to save the cost the competition and use that money for desk
donation to save the shortage of the desk in public school. As announced by the minister
responsible for Regional Administration and Local Government , declare deletion of this year's
UMISETA tournament in order to have a good time to involve stakeholders in the government's
efforts to ensure our schools across the country are kept and benches. These Decision have huge
impact among student who basically sports and games are the chance for them to join with their
fellow in school. That means sports and games help to avoid some factors such led them to
alienate with others and led school dropout.

KSSSA is well organized. Fixtures are arranged in advance and this encourages the teams to
prepare early. Transparency is also highly encouraged; officials are paid their dues on time.
These incredible organizational skills have seen KSSSA win the prestigious Safaricom sportsman
of the year awards in 2005. In 2006 and 2007 they emerged second. The games are held at zonal,
district, provincials, nationals and regional levels. The best two teams from the nationals are

picked to represent the country at the east African regional schools championships. Kenya has
won the east African regional championships for the last five years in a row. Through these
regional championships, it is hoped that the standard of sports will be raised in the participating
countries. (2015) Retrieved from http://softkenya.com/sports/kenya-secondary-schools-sportsassociation/
How Sports and Games Help To Reduce Sense of Not Belonging and Relatedness among
secondary school student
Tanzania
Childrens participation in extracurricular activities is associated with numerous positive
outcomes, including fostering students sense of belongingness (Makinywa and Straton 2014)
Its the place for a student to show/expose their Talent, to encourage learners to demonstrate
their own talents and values and to recognize the aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of their
lives. Aesthetics are also important for recreation, entertainment, health and leisure (BEST 2013)
The sports and games activities it preferred by students in Tanzania as the place where they can
expose what other colleagues never witness from them. Things such as skills in drible ball dunk
into basketball court help them to feel school is the best place to be.
Its the place where they can feel comfortable/confidence Sport provides children with
opportunities to try new skills and assess their capabilities. As figures of authority, parents and
coaches have an enormous capacity to make children feel good about themselves. Even casual
remarks can have a great impact. Parents and coaches should always find something each child
does well, even if its just following directions, and give praise for that. By trying and error a
student can develop new skill which will help to promote his confidence and make him/her

comfortable to perform his desired task. By having this opportunity a student is likely to feel
school is the perfect environment to him or her to stay.
The chance for exposing the Hidden Character its likely children with good performance are
the one who given priority to become a leader in the school and left those who are not perform
well as the subordinated This tendency its demoralize some students and at the end led to have
school dropout due to the feel sense of not belonging. Through sports and games its place where
we can identify a true leader with all good characteristics of leadership even though he/she is not
good performer in academic arena. This identification will generate sense of belonging and
relatedness among the secondary student
It The place for Making New Friends as the school environment alienated as student the
student will likely to feel no string attached with him and collegues, and hence feel not belonging
to the certain environment and fail to make friends, but when it comes the interaction with
various member from different schools its possible for him/her to meet compatible mate which
will influence him to study hard and feel his/her part of the school.
Help to reduce ideas the Academic performance inferiority When sports and Games Come
all academic matters are put down and talents speaks, Here is the platform for all no one will
remind other about the classroom activities which sometimes put other member head down
because they perform low, so games and sports prove to them there other room that they can play
part

KENYA
School connectedness is the psychological state of belonging in which individual students
perceive that they and other students are well taken care of, trusted and appreciated by a group of
adults (Whitlock, 2006).
It the Path to fulfill the dream becoming a Globe Superstar unlike Tanzania where a student
Participate into school and games activities for the sake of display his her talent without having
any assurance of his future talent, In Kenya sports and games is a major platform for student to
become a globe superstar as far as the serious of Kenya stakeholders together with government
are concern. The KSAA is fully sponsored with local and World Company such as Brookside
Diary, Coca Cola, Airtel. This situation led a student to attach well with sports activities and feel
he/she connectedness and related to the school.
Encourage Student to become Brand Ambassador The presence of major company in
sponsorship of KSAA they also provide opportunities to those best performers to become their
brand ambassador which is very good to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of the student
in performing the activities.
The sports and Games Provide room for strengthen union among Kenya, As far as the
country 2007 general election which led the restless among Kenyan and increase the tribalism
problem in community, The sports and games I secondary school force to retain union among
Kenyan students. Those who engage into sports having an advantage compare to those who not
participate into sports and make feel that school is best place to be.

Sports and Games such athletics in Kenya is Sports of Honor which each and every student
tempted to participate as symbol of a nation which provide world greatest athlete such as David
Rudisha, Ezekeiel Kimboi,Pamela Jelimo Vivian Cheruiyot etc Those guys influence student to
participate and stay at school and feel one day they will follow their footsteps.
Its the Place where student can demonstrate Their Talents and skills Team work ability
The sports and Games is the platform for the Kenyan student to show their skills Talent and team
work ability
Its place pleasure and enjoyment Kenya students secondary Associations sports tournament is
the honored tournament which involve various number of sports compare to Tanzania Umiseta so
its the place where people enjoy a lot because there is good facilities and venue for student and
the supervisors well supervise the tournament with the presence of various food and beverage
services.

Comparison and between Tanzania and Kenya in Contribution Of sports and Games in
Reducing sense of not belonging and relatedness as a factor of school dropout
Tanzania and Kenya are both East Africa countries but are differ in their education system as the
Tanzania 7-4-2-3 while Kenya 8-4-4
Kenya Invest a lot in Secondary school sports games as we discussed above there is sponsors in
their school tournament while Tanzania Sports and Games Still regarded as the leisure and extra
curriculum activities which umiseta conducted as Bonanza sports.
As Tanzania student use the Umiseta as one way for Making New friends Kenya Counterpart is
the way to strengthen the union among them.

Kenya is more serious Than Tanzania in Sports and Games as they provide world major
superstars through this tournament while Tanzania freeze the tournament to save money for desk
shortage.

Recommendations and Conclusion.

The Kenyan student is likely to have less school dropout compare to Tanzanian student since the
sense of not belonging and relatedness is being pushed away by the conducive environment of
sports and games within the secondary school. Tanzania authority in sports and Games must take
those positive initiatives to improve sports and games in secondary school and led to reduce
number of absenteeism student in schools.

91

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