The effect of motivation on teacher retention in public secondary schools in Nakifuma county, Mukono District.

Abstract

The researcher set out to find the effect of motivation on teacher retention in public secondary schools in Nakifuma County, Mukono District. The purpose of this study was to determine how the factors of motivation which were prompt remuneration, responsibilities, and in-service training affected teacher retention in public secondary schools in Nakifuma County.

The researcher used the sample survey design to collect data from the population. The study population composed of 169 teachers from the selected public secondary schools in Nakifuma County and by using Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table of sample size specification, the sample composed of 118 teachers. The researcher used the questionnaire as the data collection instrument because it provided a quicker means for collection of information from such a large sample. The data that was analyzed using the statistical program for social sciences (SPSS) from which the Chi–square test was used to find the relationship between the factors of motivation and teacher retention and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test was used to determine the extent to which the factors of motivation affected teacher retention in public secondary schools in Nakifuma County.

The researcher found out that prompt remuneration was a motivation factor that was commonly used in public secondary schools in Nakifuma County to retain teachers. This was because teachers in these schools gave value to their work when there was an anticipated reward such as prompt remuneration. Responsibilities such as being a head of department, director of studies, and other responsibilities in a school increased on the teachers’ performance in their respective duties however these responsibilities did not necessarily motivate these teachers to continue working in a particular public secondary school for a longer time. In-service training was not commonly used as a motivation factor to retain teachers because it involved high costs in terms of providing facilitators to train teachers and the results of the training would take long to be realized by the school. The researcher also found that some teachers after acquiring the extra skills through the in-service training developed a tendency to leave the parent school for either promotions or greener pastures.

Therefore public secondary schools should endeavor to promptly remunerate their teachers such that they can be able to meet their basic economic needs through the money they earn from these schools. Teachers should to be given responsibilities in a public secondary school as this makes them to develop a sense of belonging to the school. In-service training should be incorporated into the public secondary schools’ curriculum because it enables teachers to acquire new skills, knowledge of content, and attitudes towards work, while uplifting and maintaining teacher effectiveness and efficiency.