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 In-depth interview as well as data from the ministry of education as part of the data collection.
The teachers and principals who participated in the research are professionals with a wealth of experience in the teaching field nearly all of them have spent more than a decade in the teaching field and had served in different schools in the Gambia.
This makes them much more qualified for this research.
The findings and discussion are presented below.
Teachers’ Perceptions of the Factors that Influenced Teacher Turnover
Research Question 1:
Based on the perceptions of the Teachers and Principals at the Private Senior Secondary Schools in the Gambia, what the Factors responsible for Teacher turnover?
After the data analysis, the following were the emerging themes that were found to be responsible for teacher turnover in the private senior secondary schools, they are; lack of Motivation in terms of Salaries, lack of Training opportunities , lack of Promotion, and lack of respect for Teachers. The themes and subthemes as well as the quotes that were derived from the research participants can found at the appendix (E). At every stage all themes and subthemes are thoroughly explained with quotations from the research participants.
Lack of Motivation
Lack of motivation has been found to be a factor that is responsible for teacher turnover in private schools in the Gambia, this is in line with a study conducted by Alam and Farid (2011) on the factors affecting teacher motivation in Pakistan. The
research participants shared their experiences on how lack of motivation affect teacher turnover in private senior secondary schools in the Gambia. One of the respondents PS22 disclosed that the reason behind teachers leaving the teaching profession is because they are not receiving the motivation that they deserve.
PS22. Actually because it is not encouraging and that the teachers are not motivated, you find out that most people will start to move to other professions, this is because they are not motivated. Actually am not motivated, in terms of percentage I can say I am 25% motivated.
Another respondent PS17, revealed that She is not in any way motivated adding that her intention of leaving the teaching profession is very high. “My motivation is not good and for your information I may quit any moment from now.”
Salary
Salary was found to be the main factor that is responsible for teachers leaving the teaching field. This in line with (Hanushek, Kain & Rivkin , 2004) as well as Gonzalez, Brown, and Slate’s (2008) teachers who left the teaching profession, in which out of the 8 teachers interviewed 7 of them complained that low salary was the main reason why they left the teaching profession. In this research nearly all respondents cited Salary to be the main factor that is responsible for teacher turnover.
According to one of the respondent PS5 teachers leave the teaching field due to financial reasons, adding that low salaries is not only prevalent in the Gambia but in most countries in the African continent.
PS5.Teachers leave the teaching field is because of their financial responsibilities.
Because if you are working and the financial responsibility I mean your family.
This is Africa here we have a high dependency rate. So if the teaching cannot take care of your immediate family and other dependents you now think of doing something else . In some African countries they pay is high but for others the pay is very low. They don’t take care of the teachers the way they take care of the lawyers and other professions but they don’t remember that all these people pass
through the hands of the teachers so the teachers should be the one priority they are the ones who train the lawyers, the doctors you name it, but by the time you are in the field you discover that even the younger once you train they are in better positions in life and for you as the teacher you can’t boost of your own compounds, in fact some of us are still living in our family houses.
According to research participant PS15 (Principal) who has spent more than two decades in the teaching system added that the main reason why teachings are leaving the teaching field is because of low salaries and allowances, she pointed out that turnover of teachers do affect the academic performance of the students, she advised that the earlier the plight of the teachers are taken care of the better.
PS15. The salaries and allowances of the teachers is inadequate looking at the circumstances because you will see that most of us live far from the school and like me I have to travel every day. I have a car but anytime it has a break down I have to pay a lot of money to fix it and the spare parts are expensive. The school does not have a transport of its own most of my teacher commute in public transport, like today before I get here I paid four-hundred and fifty dalasi ( $10) yesterday I paid more than that, how many of us can afford that and you know it is not easy. And this is why their high turnover of teachers, if they see that a particular place is more economical for them they move. So think that dedication is no longer their because people are looking after their welfare, like me because am over 60 years I retired but currently am on contract and this affect the students because if a new teacher comes before the students catch up with his method of teaching he resigns and another comes before they catch up with his method of teaching the exams is at the corner so you see these are factors they are making most of our students not to do well in this country. The earlier teachers welfare is taken care of I think teachers will otherwise it˜s only the old once who will stay.
What the above statement implies is that the salaries and allowance of the teachers are not enough and is the main reason why teachers are living the system and that in turn affect the performance of the students as mentioned before, the best thing to be done to remedy the situation is to increase the salaries of teacher.
Lack of Training opportunities
Lack of training opportunities was found to be a factor that is responsible for teacher turnover. The research participants shared their experiences with this researcher on how training opportunities can influence teacher turnover.
According to PS2, the chances of getting training opportunities are very slim in the private schools compared to government schools and that’s among the reason why teachers leave the teaching field and go to other professions where they can develop themselves.
PS2. Other reasons are opportunities for further studies. In the private sectors you may not have the opportunity for further studies but for government institutions scholarships are always provided for their workers to go for further training but you hardly get that in the private sectors.
Another respondent PS13 pointed out that lack of training opportunities in the private schools is a factor that is responsible for teacher turnover in private senior schools in the Gambia. He said teachers will always like to develop themselves but they are not getting such opportunities in their places of work.
PS13. From my perspective I think teachers leave the teaching profession due to lack of training opportunities. In the private schools it’s very hard to come by such opportunities. So most of the time when teachers found out that they don’t have any prospect to for further studies they will quit and go to places where they will develop themselves because the fact is that all workers want to develop themselves. Even you if you are to work at a particular place and you don’t have the opportunity for further training off course you will leave and go. So this is one reason why teachers leave.
Lack of Promotion
The research participant pointed out that lack of promotion is a factor that plays a role in teacher turnover as highlighted in table 4.1, this is in agreement with a study conducted by Lyness and Judiesch’s (2001) are female quitters, it was reported that promoted managers are likely stay on the job compared to those who are not promoted. The research participants shared their perspectives in this study on promotion influencing teacher turnover. The research participant’s views were very much consistent.
The following are their perspectives on the issues of promotion. According to research participant PS12, it’s very much hard to get promotion in the private schools because the boards of directors always try to minimize their expenditures. In other words when they promote teachers they will have to increase the salary of the promoted employees so that’s what they always try to avoid promotion.
PS12. It is very difficult to receive promotion here, most senior schools are manage by board of directors so usually they always try to minimize their expenditure, so what happens is that they will only have head of department instead of having both senior master and head of department just for them to save money, so in that case you only remain as a classroom teacher. The chances of getting promoted here is very slim so because of that I don’t want to stay.
Lack of Respect for Teachers
Another issue that was raised by the respondents was lack of respect for teachers, more than half of the teachers complained that lack of respect for teachers has contributed to teachers leaving the teaching field and has equally discouraged young people from taking up teaching as a career.
Participant PS3 explained that the society’s perception towards the teaching profession is not the least encouraging.
PS3. Another factor has to do with the people. Even the perception of people especially young people towards teaching is not encouraging, in the sense that the Society and even their families does not encourage them to take up teaching as a career.
PS3 also complained of his family most especially his mother being against his intention to take up teaching as his profession, adding that his mother expected him to take up another profession rather than the teaching field, because he graduated from the university.
PS3: Personally when I completed the university and started teaching my mum was not happy even up to now she is not comfortable with me teaching. Because she felt that after completing the university I should go and do another job and not teaching but if you look at the job market in the Gambia it is somehow saturated. So some graduates will end up taking up teaching at least to keep themselves engage before they will finally have a career.
PS3, explained about the reasons why most people in the Gambian look low upon the teaching profession.
PS3. The reason why people look down on teaching all boils down to money, just as I mentioned earlier on people have the perception that there is no money in the teaching field. To be honest it’s very rear to see teachers driving cars or wearing fancy shoes and things like that. If you look at the culture of Gambians they expect one to be in an office they are more comfortable with that. As a teacher you don’t have such opportunities except if you are an administrator.
Another respondent PS10 explains that teachers are not respected by the society through this statement.
PS10. And also the way society view teaching, it doesn’t have good image from the society, the society looks low upon them, we all want to be respected in what we do but unfortunately this is not the case with teaching.
What the statement of PS10 implies is that they are not getting any respect from the society that they deserve respect like any other employee but unfortunately they are not getting it from the society.
This is among other reasons why teacher leave the teaching field, there were other teachers who spoke to this researcher off the recorder who also expressed similar sentiments.
Furthermore the research participants were asked what would be the main reason that might lead them to leave the teaching field, if one day they decide to quit. It’s interesting to note that more than 95% of the research participants revealed that lack of financial motivation would be the principal reason that will be responsible for them quitting the teaching field. This is what most of them had to say.
Research participant PS4 stated that if he decides to leave the teaching field someday the main reason will be due to low salary payment. PS4. “If one day I decide to leave the teaching field someday, the main reason would be lack of financial motivation.” PS2 stated. “If I ever leave the teaching field it must have something to do with finance”.
PS6 stated that unless the salary is good then he will stay but otherwise the principal reason of him quitting the filed would be based on financial reasons. PS6. “If I ever leave the teaching is going to be due to finance if the salary is good I will stay”.
Commenting further, research participant PS9 agreed with other research participants that finance would be the main reason if one day he decides to quit the field he however added that he would then go and do business for his livelihood. PS9. “If am to leave the teaching field someday it would be lack of Financial motivation either I want to run a business of my own or I retire”.
Unless the teachers are financially motivated otherwise the issue of turnover would be solve anytime soon.
Challenges Faced by Teachers
Research Question 2
Based on the Perceptions of Teachers and Principals at the Private Senior Secondary Schools in the Gambia, What are the Challenges that they are faced with?
There were three themes that emerged after the data analyses as challenges faced by teachers in executing their duties, which they also said can also trigger teacher turnover. They are student behavior, class size, workload, and dependency, the biggest challenge being student behavior which nearly all the research participant pointed out as the main challenge that they are confronted with.
Student behavior
Nearly all the research participants identified student behavior as a contributing factor to teacher turnover with some of them saying that that has been their greatest challenged. This finding is in line with the literature that found student behavior to have had influence on teacher turnover. (Ingersoll, 1999;Liu &
Meger2005). All of these researchers in their findings came to a conclusion that student behavior does affect teacher turnover.
According to research participant PS4 one of the greatest challenged that he faces is students not willing to learn, adding that he always try to give his best despite the challenge.
PS4 . Some of the greatest challenges that I face are having students not ready to learn .Sometimes we would try and try but it will not work. So sometimes especially me I find that to be very challenging because I would not like to leave them like that I would always have the zeal in me to talk to them and convince them to change their attitude and become more productive in the academic arena.
But usually they are not always willing to do that, so these are the challenges that I face as a teacher.
Another research participant PS15 who is a school principal revealed that there is poor level of discipline in her school. She went further to reveal that due to student behavior female teachers are reluctant to serve in the senior schools.
PS15. My students discipline level is very poor. if you look at the high school here we have few female teachers, there is no Gambian female teacher here, the once who are teaching here are 3 in number and they are non-Gambians and if you check in most of the high schools you will see what am telling you the female teachers are afraid to teach in the senior school because of indiscipline problems.
Class size
Classroom size was also found to be a challenged that the respondents say they are confronted with as illustrated on table 4.1.
One of the respondents PS4 recalled handling classes of 70 students he described it as uncomfortable to teach and presently he is handling classes of 45 students which according to him is not bad. However anecdotal evidence suggests that for effective learning to take place the number of student should be less than that most preferably 25 to 30.
PS4. Yes. When you look at most schools in the Gambia we have a problem in the sense that classroom size tends to be crowded. Before I came to this school the school I was teaching at, you have classrooms with a population of 70 students in a class, this is not confortable to teach in because the teacher will find it very hard to control the class. But in this school here the classroom size is conducive. I think the maximum number of students we have in class is 45 so in that regard it’s very good.
According to PS20 class size affect the ability of teachers to give assessment to students pointing out that if one does it may take you a whole term or semester to finish grading them.
PS20. The classes can sometimes go up to 60 students in class, so one to one personal attention between the student and the tutor is a problem to a point that you have 3-4 classes of 60, if you are to give them an essay or letter writing can imagine having to mark 180 scripts, if you are to do that thoroughly you will spend the whole term in one exercise and the number of periods especially if you have additional responsibility.
Workload
Some of the respondents complained of workload problems, arguing that they are given a lot of work to do which they said they are not paid for, which according to them is a challenge that they are faced with. This is in line with Adelabu’s (2005).Teacher attrition study, he indicated that workload was a contributing factor to teacher leaving the teaching profession in River state, Kaduna
Some of the respondents complained of workload problems, arguing that they are given a lot of work to do which they said they are not paid for, which according to them is a challenge that they are faced with. This is in line with Adelabu’s (2005).Teacher attrition study, he indicated that workload was a contributing factor to teacher leaving the teaching profession in River state, Kaduna