Editor-in-Chief Appointment Announcement
2025-12-24
Community Engagement in Management of Public Secondary Schools: A Systematic Comparative Review of India and Tanzania
Authors
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Gervas B.P. Karoli
Department of Education, Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh 786004, India
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Amar Upadhyaya
Department of Education, Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh 786004, India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30564/jiep.v9i1.12595Abstract
This systematic review examines the role of community engagement as a governance mechanism in the management of government secondary schools in developing countries, with a comparative focus on India and Tanzania. The review synthesized evidence from 61 current and relevant peer‑reviewed literature sources published between 2015 and 2025, identified through systematic searches of ERIC, Scopus, Web of Science, UNESCO, and government repositories. The main focus was on exploring the contributions of community engagement in the management of government secondary schools in India and Tanzania. This helped recommend further studies on challenges and ways of community engagement in schools managed by the government. Using a thematic synthesis approach aligned with PRISMA principles, the review analyses patterns across governance structures, accountability mechanisms, and school‑level outcomes. Findings indicate that community engagement contributes to improved resource mobilization, enhanced transparency, better school facilities, and stronger school-community trust, while challenges include political interference, elite capture, and uneven stakeholder capacity. The key contribution of this review lies in its comparative governance of education in elementary government institutions, which demonstrates how differing decentralization architectures in India and Tanzania shape the effectiveness of community engagement. The study proposes a Community–State Partnership Framework to guide policy and practice, emphasizing that community engagement should complement rather than substitute for state responsibility in education governance.
Keywords:
School Management; Community Engagement; Academic Achievement; Quality EducationReferences
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KAROLI, G. B., & Upadhyaya, A. (2026). Community Engagement in Management of Public Secondary Schools: A Systematic Comparative Review of India and Tanzania. Journal of International Education and Practice, 9(1), 33–47. https://doi.org/10.30564/jiep.v9i1.12595
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Copyright © 2026 Gervas B.P. Karoli, Amar Upadhyaya
This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.