A comparative study of the factors that contribute to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction between teachers in private and public primary schools in Nairobi Kilimani

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Date
1990
Authors
Immonje, Margaret Mukoya
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Abstract
In this paper, a comparative study of the factors that contribute to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction between teachers in public and private schools of Nairobi Kilimani zone has been described. General demographic information on the two groups of teacher respondents revealed that Primary One (PI) teachers were the majority of the deployed teachers in both school groups. In private schools, 22% of the studied 100 teachers were graduate teachers. This was commendable effort by private school employers for recognition, by employmen4 'of highly qualified teachers in Kenyan primary schools. Comparatively, the public schools had only 6% Approved Teachers among those studied, as equivalent highest teacher qualification. P2 and P3 teachers were very few left among the teachers studied in both settings. A study of teacher satisfiers revealed that thirteen out of seventeen main satisfiers were commonly perceived by teachers in both public and private schools studied. Similarly the main dissatisfiers were also commonly identified. The main factor of contrast in perception between .the two categories of teachers was 'Number of pupils in class' which proved to be a satisfier in private schools but a dissatisfier in public schools. The other general difference, judged by the percentages of the satisfied and dissatisfied, was that teachers in private schools were . more satisfied than their counterparts in public schools. Conversely, they were less dissatisfied than their colleagues in public schools. Satisfiers unique to teachers in private schools as elicited by the open response questionnaire were; good pay and benefits, good administration, punctuality, and christmas bonus, among others, while in public schools, they included; free time and holidays, teacher's ability to work anywhere in Kenya, prize-giving day, constant salary, good pupil discipline and teaching Kiswahili. These concurred with some earlier Kenyan researchers on this issue. Opinions of desired viable changes by 1991 expressed by the two groups of teachers, which reiterated the perceived satisfiers and dissatisfiers included; increase in salary as per inflation, implementation of the long awaited schemes of service in public schools; a review of the loaded 8:4:4 syllabus suggested by both groups of teachers, and the provision of house allowance for married women in public schools. A check on the concurrence with Herzberg's nomenclature revealed that all main satisfiers which were common to the two groups of teachers studied did not concur with Herzberg's with the exception of the factors which were associated with work itself and 'achievement'. However, all commonly identified dissatisfiersby the two categories of teachers concurred with Herzberg's except one, advancement or promotion. prospects. A further study of these factors revealed that all main satisfiers and dissatisfiers identified by the two groups of teachers were ambient to a limited point in the zone of ambience seen on the comparative divergence bar graph (Figure 2). Beyond this zone, however, they w~re observed as in the Herzberg studies, to contribute exclusively towards either satisfaction or dissatisfaction in only one direction from the continuum zero. It can be concluded that factors that contributed to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction among the two groups of teachers were generally the same with a few unique ones. The slight variation from the Herzberg nomenclature may suggest differences in work conditions between educational and industrial personnel
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Master of Education (P.T.E.) Kenyatta University, 111p.December 1990
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