CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
Background to study
No society can boost of meaningful development without well educated workforce.
Schools are the foundation of education, therefore well trained and dedicated teachers are needed in the education system. Teachers play a significant role in education. As they impact knowledge to the future generation of a country, their importance cannot be over emphasized. They are the molders of future leaders of a society. A poorly trained teaching staff will definitely not function as expected in their role as knowledge givers.
Therefore it is of paramount importance that the teaching force of a country is given maximum attention in terms of training and retention. There cannot be an educated workforce without a well trained teaching staff at the school level to help in building the foundation of the workforce of a country. The Gambia is not an exception to this. Since the start of the second republic of The Gambia in 1994, lots of effort has been put into educational reforms. There seem to be small or no impact when it comes to teachers leaving the teaching field in The Gambia. Lots of advocacy work has been done to address the problem of teacher turnover in The Gambia but the fact of the matter is no empirical research has so far been conducted to know the reasons responsible for such a persistent problem in The Gambia education system. All interventions are based on the assumption that teachers leave because of poor pay and poor living condition. Gambian teachers’ start-of salary is higher than most civil servants; therefore it is certain that other reasons are responsible for the high teacher turnover and not necessarily the issue of salary or living condition. These reasons can only be clearly understood through a more
scientific investigation; thereby providing better solutions to the problem of teacher turnover in The Gambia.
The use of empirical research help to provide answers to the government of The Gambia and to the Department of State for Education (DoSE) in Particular as to why the education sector has the highest employee turnover. Between 2003 and 2005, The Gambia College graduated one thousand seven hundred & eighty-nine students (1789), 97% of whom were sponsored by The Gambia Government to teach in schools upon completion of their studies. Yet still, the startling data from the Regional Directorates shows the high number of untrained teachers in The Gambia education system. Data from Regions one, three, five and six shows that out of three thousand, five hundred and two (3502) teachers employed in 2006 academic year, one thousand and fifty-two (1052) of them are untrained (DoSE, 2006). This figure is alarming. This means that 30.04% of these teachers have no formal training in teaching methodology. The study will not only find out the various factors responsible for teacher turnover in The Gambia but will come up with recommendations for DoSE to minimize teacher turnover.
Purposes of the study
This study strives to investigate the factors responsible for teacher turnover in government junior and senior secondary schools in The Gambia. A better understanding of these factors will go a long way to help The Gambia Education management in finding solutions to the problem of teachers leaving the job unceremoniously. This study will explore:
1. The role of salary and allowances for teachers in teacher turnover in The Gambia, 2. The role of management in teacher turnover in The Gambia,
3. The reason(s) for teacher turnover in public junior and senior secondary schools in The Gambia, and to
4. Provide suggestions and recommendations to solve the problem of teacher turnover in The Gambia.
Research Questions
The basic questions that guide this research are:
1. What is the role of salary and allowances in teacher turnover?
2. What is the role of school administrators and Management of Department of State for Education in teacher turnover in The Gambia?
3. What are the factors responsible for teacher turnover in The Gambia?
Significance of the Research
Teacher recruitment and posting poses a lot of problems to education managers, especially school principals. It is both tedious and costly. Some of the teachers hired to replace the ones who left sometimes are not as qualified in terms of teaching experience (Rollefson, 1993). Training of newly recruited teachers can cause lots of problems in terms of instructional programs. This is because they need lot of time to adapt to the new school and community they find themselves.
The ability of a school to retain qualified teachers over a long time will have a positive impact on the success of the school (Ives 2003). Identifying the factors responsible for teacher turnover will go a long way in helping both administrators and policy makers to put in place good strategies to curb teacher turnover and retain the good teachers.
Delimitation and limitation of the study
The researcher’s inability to have access to interview the Director of Human Resource Directorate at the Department of State for Education is the first delimitation to the study. Much data could have been collected from her as she is responsible for all human resources issues with regards to employees at DoSE. Several attempts were made by the researcher to interview the director but to no avail. Upon contacting her on telephone, she asked to be sent the questionnaire on line but she never did reply to them.
inaccessibility of the Human Resource Director at DoSE, not much data was collected to address issues of recruitment and promotion of teachers. This is a limitation because the research findings could not focus much on how recruitment and promotion strategies affect teacher turnover in public junior and senior schools in The Gambia.
A second delimitation to the study is that most of the teachers who participated in the research have left the teaching field for more than one year. This is a limitation to the research because conditions that might have led to their leaving might have changed and the reasons they give for their leaving can’t be used to judge other teachers leaving now or in the future.
Definition of Terms
Alkalolus: Traditional name for village heads.
Chief: Head of a district or county.
Department of State for Education (DoSE): This is the department of state charged with the sole responsibility of educational matters in The Gambia.
Department of State for Finance and Economic Affairs (DoSFEA): This is the department of state charged with government of The Gambia finances and economic activities.
Forum for African Women Educationists Gambia Chapter (FAWEGAM): This is a pan African non-profit organization working in the area of women and girls education in Africa.
Gambia College: This is the major institution in the Gambia which supplies teachers to public schools. All intakes in the School of Education are given full scholarship by the government of the Gambia and are automatically employed by the government upon graduation.
Higher Teachers’ Certificate (HTC): The HTC is the certificate awarded to students upon completion of the Higher Teachers Program at the Gambia College.
Integrated Government Pay Scale (IGPS): This is the pay scale for all civil servants in the government of The Gambia pay roll. It starts from grade one (1) and ends at grade
Parent/ Teacher Associations (PTA): These are associations made up of teachers and parents of students in a given school. They sometimes include community leaders like the head of the district and the religious heads like the Priest and the Imam (Head of mosque).
They are charged with the sole responsibility of initiating development issues and dialogue between school and the community. They also help in disciplinary issues in the school.
Primary Teachers Certificate (PTC): The PTC is the certificate awarded to students upon completion of the Primary teachers’ program at The Gambia College.
Public School: These are schools either fully or partially financed by the government.
Regional Education Director: This is the head of the Regional Education Directorate.
Regional Education Directorate (RED): As part of the decentralization of education in The Gambia, Regional Education Directorates were created charged with management of education at regional level.
Teacher Turnover: Teacher turnover refers to the rate at which employees leave a particular job and teacher turnover refers to the rate at which teachers leave their job.
The Commonwealth: This is an organization made up of the United Kingdom and her former colonies.
The Commonwealth Teacher Recruitment Protocol (CTRP). This is a protocol adapted by ministers of education of the commonwealth member states in September 2004.
Senior Management Team (SMT). This is made up of directors of various divisions at DoSE and other stake holders in education in The Gambia.
United nation Children Education Fund (UNICEF): This is a united nation organization branch responsible for children.
University Extension program (UEP): The UEP was an arrangement in which St.
Mary’s University in Canada provided undergraduate training to qualified Gambian students in The Gambia at a cost affordable to the government. Funding was mainly provided by The Gambia government.
