Job Satisfaction Study and Its Implication to Secondary School Teacher Education Policy

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate level of job satisfactions among government and private secondary teachers' in Addis Ababa. Based on literature of
teachers' job satisfaction, taking into account, the existing poor state of secondary teachers' working conditions and the administrative and managerial policies considered coercive by these groups, the study hypothesized that teachers in the government than the private schools tend to be more dissatisfied and secondary school working conditions contribute more to government teachers' dissatisfactions than their private counterparts. A total of 23 schools (9 private and 14 government) were randomly selected and a questionnaire was distributed to 90 teachers (38 private & 52 governments). Using SPSS version 10, Chi-square tests were run and statistical significance for the relationships were reported at 0.05 level. In general, satisfaction was found to be not related with school characteristics though more number of teachers from the private schools (41 .2%) was found to be satisfied than the teachers from the government schools (33.3%). Although no relationship was established between class size and dissatisfaction, the majority of those dissatisfied teachers were found teaching
in large class sizes. Few relationships were observed between teachers' background characteristics and satisfaction. Accordingly, female, older, experienced, and married teachers tended to be more likely satisfied than male, young, novice and single teachers in government schools. Teachers' level of qualification had no relation with satisfaction, although all teachers who were not trained in teacher education programs were dissatisfied. Government teachers' salary on average was found to be higher and related with satisfaction. A number of attitude and work place conditions were related to government teachers' level of dissatisfaction. Parental support and students' related variables including coming to class unprepared, cutting classes; apathy and tardiness were related to government school teachers' dissatisfaction. Similarly, teachers' level of participation and influence on school policies were related to govemment teachers'
dissatisfaction. More specific variables like the extent of participation in setting disciplinary problems, deciding how the school budget should be spent and how
teachers should be evaluated were related either strongly or moderately to government teachers dissatisfaction. In addition, teachers' autonomy and resources availability were also found more related to private than the government teachers' satisfactions. The presence of routine duties and paper work accounted for dissatisfactions of both groups. Based on the findings, the study has recommended some considerations to be attended in the secondary teacher management policy both at the federal and regional levels.