Factors Influencing Secondary School Teachers’ Intention to Leave the Teaching Profession in Favor of Other Opportunities in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
The specific objectives are to identify:
- Teachers, who are intending to leave the teaching profession sometime during their career life in the teaching profession;
- Factors which have the most influencing power to induce teachers to decide leaving the profession in favour of other opportunities
- Most influential factors, which can be adopted to change teachers intention to leave the teaching profession but rather to like and sustain it.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Introduction
This chapter covers review of related literature on intention of secondary school teachers to leave their teaching profession in favour of other opportunities. The reviews cover empirical studies first from developed countries, second from the developing counties and lastly from Nigeria. The researcher synthesizes the studies and identifies knowledge gap, which this study seeks to bridge. It also presents conceptual framework for the study.
The Theoretical Frame Work
The study is guided by the Hertzberg’s theory. In this theory of motivation and hygiene factors, Hertzberg (ibid) believes that every individual has two sets of needs motivation and hygiene theory needs. The researcher contends that an employee in this respect; teachers will stay in their schools so long as their needs are satisfied and they are motivated. Failure to meet their needs would automatically call for departure hence teacher turnover.
The theory however, assumes that all human beings have no loyalty to any organization and that soon as their needs are no longer satisfied they will seek other employment opportunities, which are not the case in the real world where finding employment is sometimes not very easy. The theory concentrates on individuals needs independent of those of the organization and it does not put into consideration the fact that there may be times when the individual’s services are not worthy of better pay be a better replacement would be a welcome change. In the context of this study, there is a need to establish whether teachers are likely to leave the teaching profession as soon as their needs are not met.
The expectancy theory as advocated by Vroom (1964) argues that teachers are likely to leave their job if their expectations are not met. The theory is preferred by the researcher because it emphases what employees need or expect from an organization and failure to fulfill them leads to low commitment, frustration, loss of morale and eventually leads to leaving the job.
Intention of Secondary School Teachers to Leave Teaching Profession in Favour of Other Opportunities in the Developed Countries
Intention of secondary school teachers to leave the teaching profession is found also in developed countries such as US and UK. According to various studies conducted by scholars in these countries. Ingersoll (2001) draws from theories advocating teacher turnover as a function of ageing and increasing student numbers. The researcher postulates that teacher turnover can be understood by examining the school organization characteristics and conditions.
The researcher asserts improvement in organizational conditions such as salaries, increased support from the school administration, reduction of student discipline problems and enhancement of teacher inputs in decision- making would all contribute to lower rates of teacher turnover. The foregoing theoretical expositions of factors influencing turnover seem to support school organizational factors as being critical in teacher turnover.
Smithers and Robson (2003) did a research in United Kingdom on factors affecting teachers’ decision to leave teaching profession and reveals five responsible factors. These are workload, new challenge, school situation, salary and personal circumstances. Of these factors, salary has the least influence on teachers’ decision to leave the profession while workload is the most influencing factor. In their findings, it was realized that, for every 100 individuals entering teacher training and due were to complete training in1998 only 88 did so and 53 of the 100 individuals were likely to remain in teaching after three years in England. A similar study was done by Johnson, (2002) and found similar results.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
Research methodology is the systematic theoretical analysis of the methods used to study a problem. This chapter presents the study paradigm, the design, the description of the population, sample selection techniques and sample size, the development of instruments, data collection, the Validity and reliability of data collection instruments, procedures for data collection, research budget, time schedule and ethical considerations.
Research Paradigm
The research paradigm is a mental and philosophical disposition a researcher may have consciously or unconsciously or on the nature of knowledge, how it is acquired, and the nature of humans, as respondents, in any social reality under my microscope and can only be qualitative or quantitative (Omari, 2011: 49). This study adopted the qualitative and quantitative to function complimentarily.
Creswell, (1998) Define qualitative research as acquired process of understanding a social or human problem based on building holistic picture formed with words, reporting views of informers and conducted in natural setting. Patton et al (2002) Qualitative Approach is characterized by research aim, which relate to understanding some aspect of social life, and it is methods which generate words rather than numbers as data for analysis. Advantages of qualitative approach. It is flexible, it develop in depth knowledge, I allow a resersercher to make a description of data, lastly is applicable for both illiterate ( Patton 2002). Quantitave Approach, Reswell, (1998) is the one that generate numbers as a data for analysis
Research Design
Research design refers to the chosen and planed way of investigation, the social reality or the planned arrangements of how to address the research problem and is organized in such a manner as to optimize on research outcomes (Omari, 2011:49). The research design used in this study is case Study (ref. Yin, 2009). This seems important because it allows a researcher to learn the problem in its environment and thus acquires richer information about the problem.
CHAPTER FOUR
FINDINGS
Introduction
This chapter presents the findings and the discussion of this current study about Factors Influencing Secondary School Teachers’ intention to leave their teaching profession in favour of other opportunities. These findings are arranged according to the research objectives, namely; to identify teachers, who are intending to leave the teaching profession sometime during their career life in the teaching profession, to identify factors which have the most influential powers to enable them teachers to decide leaving their teaching profession for other job opportunities, and to identify most influential factors which can change respondents’ intention to leave the teaching profession, decide to like and sustain it.
The chapter is divided into three main sections. The first section presents the main demographic data of participants; the second section presents findings, while the third section represents discussions of the findings, followed by summary, conclusions and recommendations.
Demographic Data
In the first part of this report the factors influencing secondary school teachers to induce teachers to leave their teaching profession were ganged on participants’ on personal information they provided on the following aspects; gender, age, teaching subjects, number of per students stream. The following data were obtained:
In terms of age distribution 74% are between 21and 30 years old, 18% are between
31 and 40 years while the remaining 8% are between 41 and 50 years. In terms of age distribution the study shows that the majority of the respondents are aged between 21 and 30 Years (Figure 4.1).
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
This chapter presents the last part of the study. It includes summary, conclusion and recommendation for action and for further study.
Summary
This study intended to find out factors which influencing public secondary school teachers to leave their teaching profession in Lagos state for other opportunities. The objective is to minimize the leaving of teachers from the teaching profession and instead improve the quality of education in secondary schools in the country. The study has three specific objectives namely:
One identifying teachers, who intend to leave their teaching profession sometime during their career life in the teaching profession, second to identify factors which have the most influential power to induce third to identify the most influential factors which can change teachers’ intention to leave the teaching profession and instead to like, and sustain it.
The study sample was selected from 34 wards in Lagos state. The participants selected were expected to provide fruitful information about the research problem. The participants were selected some randomly and others purposively. This study has a sample size of 100 participants.
The researcher adopted a case design. The study is guided by three research questions, namely; what teachers are intending to leave the teaching profession during their career lives and look for other opportunities? Second question, is what factors have the most influential power to enable teachers to decide leaving their teaching profession in favour of other opportunities. Third, question, is if teachers are to change their intention to leave the teaching profession, and instead to like and sustain it, what most influential factors that need to be put in place to effect that change so that teachers can resume their teaching profession and remain committed to it and sustain it?
The first question had two parts. The first part sought to know teachers perspectives of enjoying teaching students. The second part sought to know factors, which influenced teachers to remain in the teaching profession despite the fact that some indicated not enjoying teaching students while others did not like teaching students. The next question was if teachers were offered a different job with the same payment condition would they leave the teaching profession. The results show that, most of the teachers did not enjoy teaching students and most of the teachers were intending to leave the teaching profession in favour of other opportunities during their career lives.
The second question sought to know factors that had most influential power in inducing teachers to decide leaving their teaching profession and instead look for other opportunities. The results shows that low salary, unconducive environment, heavy work load, lack of incentive packages in comparison with other professions and personal goals are the factors which have most influence on secondary school teachers to leave the teaching profession for other opportunities.
Third question sought to know factors which could change the intention of the teachers to leave the teaching profession but instead to like and sustained it. The results show that provisions of incentive packages, good salary, reduction of work load, provision of rewards, and creation of good environment, good leadership and management and availability of learning and teaching materials would retain them in teaching proffession.
Conclusion
From the data obtained, analyzed and the situation observed, it is clear that the factors influencing secondary school teachers to leave the teaching profession in Lagos state Municipality is understandable to the people of Lagos state. The Government should implement effective policy that would be capable to retain teachers in their teaching profession, they have to make sure that the retention of teachers is extremely essential especially for the science teachers, who are mostly required.
According to the discussion with Lagos state high ranking officials including secondary education officers, Lagos state Municipal council has shortage of 600 science teachers in this current year. This is not enough but also, the study discovered that most of the teachers who left the teaching profession are mostly science teachers and others do not report to the assigned school after their professional studies. This is supported by Smithers and Robson, (2003) and Johnson, (2002), who reported that, every 100 trainees who entered teacher training and were due to complete their training in1998, only 88 did so and 53 out of the 100 individuals were likely to remain in teaching centre for three years only in England.
Thus, the reported factors have to be considered, otherwise failure to do so the Nigerian Government will continue to incur heavy costs for re- training, recruiting, selection of new teachers, an activity which is very costly and is likely to negatively affect the policy of Big Result Now (BRN) in the Education Sector.
Recommendation
Recommendation for Action
In relation to the findings the researcher recommends the following:
The Government should provide a comprehensive education policy that would address the problem of teachers’ motivation including teachers’ salary, incentive packages, and conducive teaching environment so as to make sure that teachers’ are retained in the teaching profession to avoid unnecessary waste of national spending as well as increasing the quality of educational output and outcomes.
The Government should recruit high quality teachers, who are willing and really love teaching profession. This will help in retaining teachers in the teaching profession hence improve students’ academic performance.
Recommendation for Further Study
The study is concentrated on small geographical area in Lagos state which has 34 wards in which the 34 public secondary schools are selected. Therefore a general survey is recommended involving large geographic areas and large samples. On top of that the researcher recommends other researchers to work on other variables of this study a similar study could be carried out in private schools and other districts to find out whether the findings would be similar or not and why.
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