ABSTRACT
It is believed that teachers in
secondary schools no longer manifest expected desirable attitudes, behaviour
and competencies. These poor work attitudes and behaviour are attributed to
lack of poor motivation to teaching profession. The purpose of this study was
to examine the staff motivation as a tool for effective secondary school
administration. In Aguata zone of Anambra State. Two research questions and two
null hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey design was used for the
study, 400 teachers were selected from a population of 791, and 20 schools from
a total of 51 secondary schools distributed in Aguata Education zone in Anambra
State. Data were collated using a four point scale, question are of 24 items,
comprising of two sections. These have reliability coefficient values of 0.86
and 0.99 respectively. The reliability coefficients were determined using
Crombach alpha reliability coefficient technique. Analysis was done using
standared deviation and mean scores for answering the research questions and
t-test for testing the null hypotheses. Finding revealed that Urban and Rural
teachers in secondary schools were aware of the strategies that would enhance
the motivation of teachers towards better performance and measures that could
be adopted to enhance motivation but do not experience them. Some of these
strategies include prompt and regular payment of salaries, opportunities for
advancement in the teaching profession, allowances for administrative works,
good prospects of promotion in the teaching profession etc. Measures indicated
for enhancement of staff motivation communication between teachers and school
administrators good working environment, recognition of teachers for the work
they do and also paying teachers salaries on regular basis. It was recommended
that both state government and school administrators should be alive to the
responsibilities of teachers. Urgent attention to these findings and
recommendation will likely enhance teacher’s commitment to teaching profession
hence improved quality instruction.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
All
round development of the child has been the desired goal of education, the
issue of high standards and quality in our secondary schools cannot be
completed without considering the quality of staff (teachers) since, human
resource is considered the most important factor of production.
The
staff is a vital component of school administration. He stands at the most
important point in educational process. The federal government of Nigeria made
it clear in National Policy of Education (FRN, 2004) that the purpose of
teacher education should be to produce highly motivated, conscientious, and
efficient classroom teachers. The Federal Government of Nigeria has introduced
training programs, workshops, seminars that will enhance the motivation of
staff. Staff in this context refers to teachers, the oil that lubricates
factors of academic performance and educational enterprise as a whole. Teachers
as human beings need some level of motivation (material and non-material) to
elicit good and expected work behaviour from them. Motivation is therefore the
willingness to exert high level of impact on the organizational goals.
Motivation
according to Ugwu (2001) is the arousal, direction and persistence of behaviour
in achieving the goals of an institution. Therefore, the job of school
administration is to get things done through the staff and to do this, the
administrator should be able to motivate the staff. Ngwoke (2004) defined
motivation as the internal state or mental and psychological set in an
individual which compels, energizes, sustains and directs the individual’s
activity toward a goal. Motivation therefore involves the direction of behaviour, the
strength of responses and persistence of the behaviour. The term also includes
a number of other concepts such as drives, needs, incentive, reward,
reinforcement etc.
From
the above definitions, it has been observed that formal organization like
school cannot achieve effectively the stated objectives without motivating the
staff. To ensure the staff’s effective discipline and efficient performance,
even the effectiveness of the administrator, the administrator has to motivate
subordinate by meeting their needs. Bello (2003) defined motivation as the
willingness to exert high levels of effect to reach organizational goals,
conditioned by efforts, ability to satisfy some individual need. Motivation is
an embracing factor in an employee’s development to accomplish personal as well
as organizational goals. Chukwudolue (2002) noted that motivation is concerned
with how behaviour is energized, sustained, directed and regulating the
activities of an organism in a given context. Thus, behaviour is regulated by
stimulus- response associated through reinforcement process. An activated force
motivates an individual to achieve a goal.
In
most cases, when teachers are motivated, they generally perform well than when
they are not. Thus what motivates female teachers may not necessary motivate
their male counterpart. Notwithstanding, women have more positive attitude
towards teaching than their male colleagues. Obi (2003) stated that, a well
motivated and flexible work force can be achieved by a coherent approach to
developing strategies in the areas of raising teacher’s salaries without
streamlining the payment system.
Motivation
may be seen as the perceptions, methods, and experience, teaching and
individual activities used by the educational administrators for the purpose of providing a climate that is conducive to the
satisfaction of various needs of the teachers so that they may become satisfied, dedicated and
effective task performers. Motivation is important in getting long experienced and short
experienced teachers absorbed in the task of teaching as well as empowering them to give high
quality output and avoid wastages in terms of dropouts, carryover, and failures.
Motivation
is an embracing factor in teacher’s development to accomplish personal as well
as school goals. Motivation should be both intrinsic and extrinsic to ensure
teacher efficiency and effectiveness. Ogunu (2000) opined that, there are two
types of motivation, namely: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, intrinsic
motivation refers to the self generated factors that influence people to behave
in a particular direction. These factors include responsibility, freedom to
act, scope to use and develop skills and abilities, interesting and challenging
work and opportunities for advancement. Extrinsic motivation can be defined as
what is done to or for people to motivate them; these include rewards like
increased pay, praise or promotion. Extrinsic motivation can have powerful
effect but do not last long. But intrinsic motivation concerned with quality of
working life, are likely to have a deeper and longer term effect since they are
inherent in individuals and not imposed from outside
Much
emphasis has been on motivation of staff but it appears as if nothing has been
done in that regard because Nigerian teacher’s salaries are not paid regularly.
Ezenwafor (2006) observed that, an average Nigerian worker suffers from lack of
motivation; the failure of the teacher is the failure of the school, while the
effectiveness of teacher is the effectiveness of the school. So the teacher’s
welfare should not be taken for granted. This shows that motivation is a
reinforcer that could make a teacher enhance his productivity with or without
supervision, cause him to be happy and eager to perform his official tasks
effectively irrespective of location. A major reason for the perceived
difference in respect between rural and urban areas is that in rural area, it
is characterized by isolated areas of an open country with low population
density such as a village, or countryside where people live on farms, hamlets
and small village, while urban area is a heterogeneous settlement with a high
population density and a vast human features that is characterized by predominantly
non-agricultural activities and the presence of sizeable modern social
infrastructures.(en.wikipedia.org).There is clear evidence that teachers in
rural areas and those in urban schools have same view on motivation and the
factors responsible for it. Thus, location has no differential effect on rural
and urban teachers.
Therefore,
motivation is the key to performance improvement. According to Ogbonnaya
(2005), education is the bedrock of all developments. As such the importance of
education to a nation’s development cannot be overemphasized so also the
importance of teachers who are pillars in the stability and sustainability of
education. The contemporary teachers keep on complaining of poor conditions of
service and lack of status in the society. ‘Poor teacher’ is a very common
phrase among many Nigerians; this is no surprising since status is measured in
terms of wealth acquired.
This
situation made Achimugu (2000) to observe that, teacher’s conditions of service
are very poor. For instance, fringe benefit such as medical service allowance
for self, wife and children, housing and car loans are still not given to
teachers. It is a fact that, without dedicated, motivated and satisfied
teachers, there will be no base for support and sustainability of education.
The Nigerian societies attach no value to teachers. Most parents do not want
their children to join teaching profession because of lack of.....
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