Factors Causing Secondary School Teachers Delay in Reporting at Their Work Stations in Rural Areas
Chapter One
Objective of the Study
The main objective of this study is to find out the factors causing secondary school teachers delay in reporting at their work stations in rural areas, specifically the study intends to;
- Find out the factors causing secondary school teachers delay in reporting at their work stations in rural areas
- Examine the causes of teachers lateness to duty in rural areas
- Analyze the effect of teacher’s lateness and delay to duty or work station and their work performance.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Teachers’ Recruitment and Deployment Practices
Any successful country must have education prosperity. This is the only solution to eradicate poverty. However, a good education is determined by having motivated and well trained teachers who can perform their duties effectively. Education in Tanzania is decentralized with the responsibility for implementation of primary and secondary education at the Prime Minister’s Office Regional Administrative and Local Government (PMO-RALG). Management and administration of education sector falls under the mandate of two sector ministries, namely Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) and the Prime Ministers’ Office Regional Administrative and Local Government. Ministry of Education and Vocational Training is responsible for policy formulation, setting standards, quality control and assurance while Prime Ministers’ OfficeRegional Administrative and Local Government oversees the supervision, administration and management of pre-primary, primary and secondary education as delivered by the local government authorities (MoEVT, 2012). On the other hand, the two ministries (Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and Prime Minister’s Office-Region Administration Local Government) are concerned with the provision of education services such as trainings, recruitment, appointment and transfers of teachers. Therefore the government of Tanzania shifted 26 powers of employing teachers from the Public Service Management Department at the President’s Office (PO-PSM) to the local government. For the purpose of decentralization of powers and provision of services to education personnel is directed to districts within Prime Minister’s Office-Region Administration Local Government (PMO-RALG). Teachers in many Africans countries including Tanzania are employed straight from teachers college or universities without having induction or orientation programmes and go direct to the working areas especially to the district councils whereby allocation of working stations is done there. This is due to the fact that, the assumption is that once they have obtained their college Certificate/Diploma or a University Degree, they are good enough to teach for life (Mosha, 2004)
The School Management and Staff Support
The school management and staff support determines how long the new teachers can stay in the respective working stations. In Tanzania heads of secondary and primary schools have now direct supervisory role over teachers. They have been delegated powers on supervising teaching and improving education in their areas of supervision, (MoEVT, 2013). A study by Johnson (2004) points out that the most important factor influencing new teachers to quit their job is the perception of how well the school principal worked with the teaching staff as a whole. The research found that, this was a stronger factor than the adequacy of resource, the extent of a teacher’s administrative duties, the manageability of his/her workload, or the frequency of professional development. 27 Johnson suggests that, training programs for principals in university or professional development programs need to emphasize interpersonal skills. The study by Buchanan et al. (2013) indicated that, the strategies for enhancing the early years of teaching were in terms of both the support received in the workplace and the contributions of teacher education programs. However, those first years for teachers remain obscurity in terms of quality. It is clear that the decision to remain in or to leave teaching is influenced by many factors, including the experiences of teachers during their first few years in the profession. Buchanan et al. (2013) found the following factors from the early career teachers as the decision to remain in or leave the profession: (i) Collegiality and academic social support: The quality of collegial support new teachers receive makes a considerable difference to their ability to manage their teaching.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we described the research procedure for this study. A research methodology is a research process adopted or employed to systematically and scientifically present the results of a study to the research audience viz. a vis, the study beneficiaries.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Research designs are perceived to be an overall strategy adopted by the researcher whereby different components of the study are integrated in a logical manner to effectively address a research problem. In this study, the researcher employed the survey research design. This is due to the nature of the study whereby the opinion and views of people are sampled. According to Singleton & Straits, (2009), Survey research can use quantitative research strategies (e.g., using questionnaires with numerically rated items), qualitative research strategies (e.g., using open-ended questions), or both strategies (i.e., mixed methods). As it is often used to describe and explore human behaviour, surveys are therefore frequently used in social and psychological research.
POPULATION OF THE STUDY
According to Udoyen (2019), a study population is a group of elements or individuals as the case may be, who share similar characteristics. These similar features can include location, gender, age, sex or specific interest. The emphasis on study population is that it constitutes of individuals or elements that are homogeneous in description.
This study was carried to examine factors causing secondary school teachers delay in reporting at their work station. Selected secondary schools in Odeda LGA, in Ogun state form the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the analysis of data derived through the questionnaire and key informant interview administered on the respondents in the study area. The analysis and interpretation were derived from the findings of the study. The data analysis depicts the simple frequency and percentage of the respondents as well as interpretation of the information gathered. A total of eighty (80) questionnaires were administered to respondents of which only seventy-seven (77) were returned and validated. This was due to irregular, incomplete and inappropriate responses to some questionnaire. For this study a total of 77 was validated for the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain factors causing secondary school teachers delay in reporting at their work stations in rural areas. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing factors causing secondary school teachers delay in reporting at their work stations in rural areas.
Summary
This study was on factors causing secondary school teachers delay in reporting at their work stations in rural areas. Three objectives were raised which included: Find out the factors causing secondary school teachers delay in reporting at their work stations in rural areas, examine the causes of teachers lateness to duty in rural areas and analyze the effect of teacher’s lateness and delay to duty or work station and their work performance. A total of 77 responses were received and validated from the enrolled participants where all respondents were drawn from secondary schools in Odeda LGA, in Ogun state. Hypothesis was tested using Chi-Square statistical tool (SPSS).
Conclusion
The study concludes that the quality of the environment or location in which teachers expect to work and live has powerful influence on job satisfaction which can attract them to report immediately after being appointed and stay long at work place. This study shows that lack of interest in geographical location was established as major reason for late reporting (as indicated in Table 4.6) while poor working conditions is the leading factor for teachers not staying long in their work stations. Generally the study shows that delay in reporting and not staying in work 80 places for new teachers is influenced by various reasons such as lack of interest in geographical location, delay in payments of allowances, salary arrears, poor remunerations and motivation. It is obvious that a number of teachers who are appointed in the work station do quit according to reasons such as sickness, family issues and going for further studies and other unknown reasons. Thus poor working conditions, delayed payments and lack of motivation have been found out as leading factors which affect teachers’ motives and motivate teachers to invent various excuses for late reporting or not staying long which often they would let the true reasons be not known to the authorities. This creates shortage of teaching force in schools contributing to poor provision of education and failure of education objectives.
Recommendation
It is recommended that local government authorities and the central government should create conducive and attractive teaching working environment which could attract the qualified candidates report and stay long in their working stations. This should include sufficient and timely payments of salary and other allowances and providing motivation for teachers to create morale and commitment of staying in work places (Cassandra et al., 2006). The local government authorities, schools, stakeholders, students and parents should increase their support and public recognition towards teachers. It is recommended that ministry of education should review or establish regular pre and in-service training courses. In this case new teachers should be introduced to induction course or seminars including professional code of conduct before engaging fully in classroom to cope with new environment 81 and challenges as this will make them feel responsible and more effective to profession. Since teachers are the important input in the education process; thus how and when they report and quit workstation is very important to be noted, this is because the quality of education depends on their facilitation and other resources. A major focus should be on ensuring teachers report timely as far as they are well supported with transport allowances, as well as being offered reasonable salary which enables them to meet their basic needs and that they will stay longer in teaching profession. Therefore, failure to consider their requirements, the provision of education services will be of low quality. For further research, the findings of this study suggest to be carried out an extensive study to find out what are these unknown reasons that make secondary school teachers quit their work stations. There is a need of local and central governments to collect more information in order to establish national reasons. This could help come up with sustainable strategies country wide to curb shortage of public secondary school teachers especially science subjects.
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