Governing Teacher Professional Conduct: School Management Team Strategies in Tanzanian Public Secondary Schools

Teacher professional conduct remains a critical determinant of educational quality. Yet, the governance strategies employed by School Management Teams (SMTs) to foster professionalism in Sub-Saharan African schools remain underexplored empirically. This study examined the strategies SMTs used to promote professional conduct among teachers in public secondary schools in Mkuranga District, Tanzania. Guided by an integrative theoretical framework combining Deterrence Theory and Transformational Leadership Theory, a qualitative multiple-case study was conducted across six purposively selected schools. Data were generated through 66 semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with SMT members and teachers, and analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s six-step thematic analysis. Five interconnected strategies were identified: monitoring, engagement, sensitization, reporting, and support. These strategies functioned in complementary ways, with monitoring and reporting reinforcing accountability through structured oversight, while engagement, sensitization, and support cultivated intrinsic motivation and professional identity. Cross-school analysis revealed contextual variation in implementation, with urban schools employing more formalized governance structures and rural schools relying on relational oversight. The study contributes an empirically grounded five-strategy governance typology and demonstrates the analytical value of integrating Deterrence Theory with Transformational Leadership Theory in Sub-Saharan school governance research. Implications for SMT capacity building, policy design, and distributed leadership practices are discussed.