The purpose of this empirical study was to establish how school managers address the problem of teacher attrition in public secondary schools in Zambia with a view of developing strategies that may be used to reduce teacher attrition in schools. The objectives of the study were to examine how teacher attrition affects the functioning of public secondary schools; find out which factors influence teacher attrition in public secondary schools; and determine and describe which measures are used to sustain teacher retention in public secondary schools. The study adopted a case study design employing mainly the qualitative approach of data collection and analysis. However, quantitative methods of data collection and analysis were also employed to a lesser extent to complement the qualitative aspect. The data were collected through interviews and questionnaires. The sample consisted of 33 participants comprising 30 school managers and three (3) district education board Secretaries from Chongwe, Lusaka and Kafue Districts of Lusaka province. The qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis while the quantitative data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20 to generate descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that teacher attrition positively correlates to poor staffing levels and poor student achievement (r=0.812). The study further established factors influencing teacher attrition in public secondary schools as being poor working conditions, lack of administrative support, low salaries, low social status accorded to teachers and lack of continuous professional development were among the major causes of teacher attrition. In terms of measures used by school managers in addressing the issue of teacher attrition, these include: high salaries, reduced workload, adequate administrative support, fair promotion and fair treatment, participatory decision making, and creating a positive school climate. Basing on the study findings, the following recommendations are made; that school managers should coordinate organisation climate, that is, they should start with transformation of their individual school’s organisational climate in order to create an enabling atmosphere which reduces teacher attrition. School managers should effect strategies for teacher retention through continuous professional development; they should ensure that all programmes and activities aim at addressing the actual continuous professional development needs of the teachers. School managers should apply sufficient school management support. The MoE provide explicit preparation for school managers by providing and showing them the significance of managing teacher attrition. / Educational Management and Leadership / D. Ed. (Education Management)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/26778 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Kukano, Crispin |
| Contributors | Mafora, P. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (xi, 180 leaves) : color graphs, application/pdf |
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