Paul Raphael Kitula &Patrick Olemong’i
St. Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT), Arusha.
Email: kitula07@gmail.com& patrickngalaole@gmail.com

Abstract: This study examined the impact of rural living conditions on teachers’ job retention in public secondary schools in Monduli District, Tanzania. Specifically, the study examined the influence of access to social services (housing, transport and communication facilities) on teachers’ job retention. Job Embeddedness Theory guided the study. A convergent mixed-methods design was adopted. The study targeted a population of 577 participants, comprising 544 teachers, 16 schools heads, 16 Ward Education Officers (WEOs), and one District Education Secondary Officer (DEO). The sample consisted of 133 respondents, including 120 teachers, six schools heads, six WEOs, and one DSEO. Schools were selected by simple random sampling, proportionate stratified sampling for teachers, criterion purposive samplingfor schools heads and WEOs, while total population sampling was used to select DSEO. Data were collected through questionnaires and interview guides. Validity was established through expert review, while reliability of 0.894 was determined using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. Trustworthiness of qualitative data was ensured through member checking, communicative validation, and broad description. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics through SPSS Version 25, while qualitative data were analyzed thematically and presented in narrative form. The findings revealed that access to social services (housing, transport and communication facilities) had a very high influence on teachers’ job retention, with a composite mean of 4.30. In conclusion, inadequate rural living conditions increased transfer intentions and weakened teachers’ willingness to remain in rural schools. The study recommends improving social services, staff housing, roads, transport, and communication facilities in rural public secondary schools.

Abstract: Street vending activity is considered as an important source of informal employment resulting from lack of limited lucrative employment, hence leading many people to move from their villages to cities searching for employment where they expect to get better pay. In Rwanda, the street vending activity is considered as illegal under the motive of keeping clean Kigali City and the secondary cities. To attend to living conditions of people involved in the street vending activities, Government of Rwanda has initiated a project of locating them in formal markets. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the contribution of this initiative of locating street traders in formal markets on their living conditions. It employed a descriptive study design on a sample of 372 street traders drawn from around 4,647 street vendors relocated in formal market in Kigali City. With the F-statistic of 27.617 and p-value of 0.000, findings confirm that locating street vendors at a well-known market and safer place has a significant effect on the improvement of their living conditions at all levels of significance. However, the amount of Frw 50,000 given to street vendors as starting up assistance is perceived as small to sustain their business. Similarly, the backward movement of some to street vending activity is to be strictly discouraged because not only hamper the initiative but also can reduce the potential multiplicative effect of the amount that government gives as support to located street vendors.