Conclusion
The purposed of this study was to explore the perceptions of teachers and principals of the factors responsible of teacher turnover, the challenges, and their perceptions about their career as well as the potential solutions to teacher turnover in Gambia private senior secondary schools.. The researcher used an in-depth-interview to gather data from 22 research participants, which included 20 teachers and 2 principals. The results showed that lack of motivation in terms of salary, lack of promotion, lack of training opportunities as well as lack of respect for teachers the teaching profession are factors that are responsible for teacher turnover.
The researcher further inquired about the challenges that confront teachers in the private schools that could trigger turnover. The research participants disclosed that student behavior, workload, class size and dependency are the challenges that they are faced with. The research participants pointed out that student behavior is the major challenged that they are confronted with this they said could trigger teacher turnover.
The research participants also pointed out that they are also faced with a lot of workload with some of them not taking time off during the holidays but instead spent most of their time working.
The class size was also another challenged that they said they are confronted with, It was reported that some of the schools had classes size of up to 60 students which they described as a huge challenge, some of them question if an effective learning can take place in such a crowded environment.
The research participants further pointed out that dependency is a serious problem that they are battling with and that’s why some of them have to do other jobs such as petty business, private tutoring and farming so as to make ends meet.
The findings lead to the conclusion that for teacher turnover in private schools to be reduced, there is a need for policy makers, employers and all stake holders to come up with better policies that will keep teachers on the job and the most important of all is to come up with a better pay scale because that’s the most
important reason that is responsible for teacher turnover as indicated by the research participants.
Research Implications
The researcher has indicated earlier on that for teacher turnover to be reduced there is a need for employers, policy makers and all stake holders to come up with better policies for teachers that will reduce teacher turnover in the private senior secondary schools.
Implications for policy
The top priority here is to make sure there is a better pay scale that will help to keep teachers on the job, recruiting and employing most experience and qualified teachers is not enough but retaining them on the job is the most important and crucial thing that should be done.
Furthermore it was stated earlier on that there is lack of respect for teachers, the reason boils down to same salary problem because the society has seen that most teachers are not financial strong compared to people in other professions, as one of the research participant indicated earlier on that most teachers still live in their family homes, this is because they can’t afford to buy their own homes, so in other for them to be respected they should be giving the necessary support needed so that they will live a decent live like other employees in other professions.
Most of the research participants indicated that they have not receive any training since they were employed, providing such opportunities for teachers is very crucial in minimizing teacher turnover and it will also minimize the cost in recruiting new teachers.
Another issue that needs to be looked at is the issue of lack promotion. It’s indicated by the research participants that promotion is hard to come by in the private schools, some of them revealed that they have been in the system for several years without being promoted. Employers should understand that promotion is very important in keeping employees motivation which in return is very important in retaining them on the job.
Implications for Leadership
Teachers are confronted with several challenges such as workload, student behavior, classroom size and dependency. They need the support of the principals, school proprietors and school board of directors to carry on their duties effectively.
Firstly and foremost teachers need the help of the school leadership in dealing with in-discipline related problems because this is one of the main challenged that teachers are confronted with. The school can also engage the parents to help discipline their children because the research participants stated during the interview that some parents are not in support of teachers disciplining their children. Therefore it’s important that parents cooperate with the school in enforcing discipline in the schools.
The workload for teachers should be addressed as well, let more teachers be hired in order to reduce the workload otherwise the teachers will always feel that they are not treated fairly compared to some of their other colleagues in other sectors who are receiving better pay with less work.
The class size according to the research participants have hampered their efforts in reaching out to all the students, in fact a senior teacher who has served for more than 10 years revealed that some of his colleagues left the teaching field because of too many students. Though schools would always like to admit more students in their school in other to gain profit but it’s important that they also take into consideration the class size for the sake of quality outcome.
There are measures that policy makes can take to reduce the dependency ratio, for instances government should create employment opportunities for the youth or encourage local and foreign investors to come and invest in the country where by employment opportunities would be created that would avail the locals the opportunity to work, in addition the social cost should be reduce so that goods and service would be affordable to all this way the dependency ratio will be drastically reduce.
Research Limitation
As in most empirical studies, the research has some limitations. First and foremost the sample was obtained in only 7 schools in region one. The inclusion of
more schools or regions would have provided more information with an even representation. The total participants were 22 which included 20 teachers and 2 principals for a better representation more sample could be included. The researcher was unable to have access to other principals to give more information on the teacher turnover in the private senior secondary schools.
Another limitation was that the interview was all conducted in the school campuses of the research participants. Perhaps if it were conducted in their homes or somewhere away from their schools they might have been able to speak freely and provide more information on the topic of discussion without having to look over their shoulders.
Suggestions for Further Study
In other to take this study to another level, the researcher would like to recommend that a mix method could conducted to find out teacher turnover in either the private senior secondary school or private junior secondary schools in the Gambia with a wider population in order to get more information on teacher turnover.
Also the researcher would like to suggest that a further research should be conducted to find out how teacher turnover affect the performance of students in either the private or public schools because it seems little or no research has been conducted yet in this area.
In addition the researcher further recommends that a study need to be conducted to find out how to attract and retain teachers in either the private or public schools so that the problem of teacher turnover could be addressed and make the teaching field to be a lucrative profession for teachers.
Finally a study should be conducted to investigate why there are less female teachers in the senior school system in both the private and senior secondary school system. This was an issues that was raised by one of the research participant during the interview that there are few female teachers teaching in the senior secondary schools that their male counterparts.
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APPENDIX A: CONCENT LETTER FOR TEACHERS
Dear Teacher,
These questions are part of a research project conducted by George Sambou Gomez, a student of the Graduate Institute of International Human Resource Development at National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei- Taiwan.
This researcher intends to find out factors affecting teacher turnover in Gambia senior private senior secondary schools.
This research is strictly for academic purpose, the information you will provide would be kept confidential. Your personal information will not be included in this study.
This research is strictly for academic purpose, the information you will provide would be kept confidential. Your personal information will not be included in this study.