AN EVALUATION OF STAFF MOTIVATION MEASURES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF SCHOOLS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Motivation is not completely a new term. What is interesting about it is that it is commonly assumed to be a good thing that goes in influencing individual’s behavior and performance at work. Teacher motivation naturally has to do with teacher’s attitude to work. It has to do with teachers desire to participate in the pedagogical process within the school environment. It has to do with teacher’s interest in student discipline and control particularly in the classroom. Therefore it could underlie their involvement or non-involvement in academic and non-academic activities, which operate in school. The teacher is one that translates educational philosophy and objective into knowledge and skill and transfers them to students in the classroom. Classroom climate is important in teacher motivation. If a teacher experiences the classroom as a safe, healthy, happy with supportive reassures and facilities for teaching for optimal learning, he/she tends to participate more than expected in the process of management, administration and the over all improvement of the school.

The teacher commands and emits the image of one who improves knowledge and the physical condition of the classroom through orderliness, discipline and control. He makes diagnosis of student’s feelings and attitudes inferred by their behavior and response in the classroom environment. Hence, Lash and Kirkpatrick (1990) concluded that in the absence of school programmes, the major responsibility of working with children in the school rests with the teacher. Likewise Maeher and Midgley (1991), airms that what takes place in the classroom, even through the classroom itself is not an island, is critical. Therefore, depending on the degree of congruence with classroom practices and school environment, teachers teaching activities may dilute or enhance students learning and performance. Teachers motivation is therefore anything done to make teachers happy, satisfied, dedicated, and committed in such a way that they bring out their best in their places of work so that both students, parents, and the society will greatly benefit from their services. Teachers have both intrinsic and extrinsic needs.

A teacher who is intrinsically motivated may be observed to undertake a task for it own sake, for the satisfaction it provides or for the feeling of accomplishment and self actualization. On the other hand, an extrinsically motivated teacher may perform the activities /duty in order to obtain some rewards such as salary. Extrinsic motivation plays an important part in people’s life. It is pre-eminent in influencing a persons behavior. Therefore, the aim of organization should be to build on and enhance the intrinsic motivation for teachers to teach effectively and at the same time, to supply some extrinsic motivation along the way for school improvement (O’neil,1995). Educators are aware that reformers of education may establish new schools, effect changes in structure and curriculum, recommend and prescrib teaching methods and aids, in the end, the teacher will be solely responsible for applying them.

Unfortunately, despite the obvious leading role teachers play in school towards attending educational objectives, several authors including Ndu (1998), Ala-Adeyemi and Afolabi (1990) and the International Labour Organization (ILO,1990) report lamented that the motivation of teachers had reached an intolerable low point. Rosa Mafia Torres, the senior education adviser in UNICEF declared that the condition of teachers had for too long become the most critical “Achilles heels” of educational development in our era. Berelson and Steiner (1964), Tracy (2000) defined motivation as all those inner striving conditions, described as wishes, desire, urges to stimulate the interest of a person in an activity. It is therefore an inner state that stimulate and triggers behavior. Ukeje (1991), said “motivation could make a mule dance” The relative incidence of specific behaviors, such as teaching and learning, discipline and control in schools could be undermined if teachers were not motivated. Sadly, the lack of effective teacher motivation is a prime factor in experienced teachers looking for work in other fields. Management can be defined as the coordination of all the resources of an organization through the process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling in order to attain organizational goals.