International Journal of Research in Social Science and Humanities (IJRSS) E-ISSN : 2582-6220 DOI: 10.47505/IJRSS.2023.V4.7.7 Vol. 4 (7) July -2023 https://ijrss.org Page 36 Internal Quality Assurers’ Conception on Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) process: Examining Lived Experience of Secondary School Academic Member of staff within Njombe Region, Tanzania 1 Elizabeth C. Mtitu, 2 Noel Mark Makwinya, 3 Rwegasha Peter Ishemo, and 4 Benedicto William Msangya 1 PG Scholar, ,2 Lecturer, 3-4 Senior Lecturer 1-3 Department of Curriculum and Instruction 4 Department of Foundation and Management Sokoine University of Agriculture Tanzania _______________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT The study on the conception of the Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) process was examined among secondary school academic members of staff within the Njombe Region in Tanzania. The aim of the study was to examine internal quality assurers’ conception of the IQA process. The study employed a qualitative research approach because internal quality assurance is a new educational reform that was introduced officially in schools by the government of Tanzania in 2021. Always new reform brought fear to teachers in terms of the conception of the new idea itself and the way it can be conducted. Therefore, to come up with the clear and deep understanding of the new obligation, a qualitative study was needed with a descriptive case study design to check participants’ lived experiences, beliefs, attitudes, behavior, perception and interaction which allowed inner feelings and op inions concerning the phenomenon in their real life situation. Nevertheless, the study was guided by two theories which are Constructivism and Humanism theory. Constructivism theory provided social interaction with respondents which helped to provide a conception of IQA in each school during data collection. Humanism theory provided a sense of unity among interviewer and interviewee by inviting human being spirit which increased the possibility of data collection. The study used 20 respondents including 10 internal quality assurers, 8 frontline teachers, and 2 District Education Officers. Purposive sampling was used to select internal quality assurers and District Education Officers while simple random sampling was used to select frontline teachers. Data were generated through interviews, observation, and documentary review. The study revealed that in all 5 secondary schools passed teachers did not attend seminars and they were running the new reform using their working experience. The study advised all educational stakeholders to check how to provide continuous awareness to teachers for effective implementation of IQA in schools. Key Words: Constructivism and Humanism theory, Frontline teachers, Internal quality assurers conception, Internal quality assurance, Internal quality assurers. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. INTRODUCTION The Quality Assurance process in Education has its roots in the 19 th century during industrial revolution in Europe. Inspectors checked quality of goods produced in industries to reduce defects in manufactured products (Matete, 2009). Inspection process became increasingly important during the second half of the 20 th century when the production of quality goods was highly needed in the World (Allais, 2014). During the early 18 th century, the idea of inspection was adopted into the education system in some European countries, especially in Dutch, German, Netherland, France, and in Italy, as a mechanism to foster accountability and responsibility of teachers in school ( Fonseca, 2016; Mganga, 2021 ). By the end of the 18 th century, the idea of school inspection spread into other countries including the United States of America and Philippines. At first in the education sector, the quality assurance process was carried out by personnel from outside of schools referred to as External Quality Assurance responsible for assessing, evaluating, and reporting the quality standards of a school to higher authorities for further action. Later, these countries introduced what is referred to as Internal Quality Assurance to allow schools to carry out their own educational processes to improve the quality of their outputs. As the two forms of quality assurance processes were operating simultaneously, researchers became interested in knowing which of the two forms was better compared to the other. Many studies were, therefore, carried out to examine the effectiveness of these two forms of educational quality assurance (internal and