CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Education is usually considered the foundation of every society's development. It functions as the structure for literacy, ability learning, technological development, and the capacity to mobilise people and material resources to meet social objectives. People might add to the advancement and improvement of the quality of life on their own, their communities, and the country in its entirety through education. In this sense, education might be viewed as the process whereby any society transfers information, values, and skills from one person to another. This according to Eze (2010) can be done with institutions, universities, colleges, and various other organizations which university of education and learning is one facet that was developed particularly to educate and prepare students for the teaching profession.
The significance of job satisfaction in managing workers of public institutions has been a prominent area of research study in the developed economies based on the idea that the inspiration of the workers might directly impacts the quality and content of the outputs in the public institutions. Job satisfaction is not just essential to the teachers themselves as public servants and employers however also to the members of the society being served. Thus, job satisfaction has been considered to be a sign of teacher retention, determinant of teacher dedication, and consequently, a most likely contributor to organisational efficiency.
In the Nigerian corporate environment, job satisfaction has played a leading role in eliciting positive work behavior. It functions as a reward that promotes work efficiency, and every forward-thinking organisation that wants to maintain a competitive economic environment should provide the required attention to employee job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is a factor that might result in an individual's well-being since it enables employees to make an informed decision concerning leaving or remaining with a specific organisation. In this context, the importance of job satisfaction of academic personnel in secondary schools in their teaching and learning job cannot be over-emphasized.
School is the major place where students study and teachers work. The school environment is certainly endowed with great importance. A helpful and healthy school environment is positively associated with teachers' work enthusiasm and satisfaction, which has an effect on teaching activities and the techniques used by students (Alinsunurin, 2020). Teachers are the most important part of achieving school objectives since achieving them relies on teachers' readiness to do their best to accomplish school objectives (Yi et al., 2020). Therefore, teachers play an essential role in shaping and improving children's intelligence during the growing period of students at schools. The values and knowledge instilled in students by teachers determine the future of their children and the nation since they are tomorrow's citizens (Zhukova, 2018). Teachers and students practice the course together, and it goes without stating that the high quality of teaching has a direct effect on students' performance (Law et al., 2019).
Nevertheless, in spite of the much talked about huge government investment in education, secondary schools in Nigeria still experience a lot of setbacks, particularly in regards to meeting the goals of secondary education. As Ukpai (2013) observed, there are instances of decay, dilapidation of couple of existing facilities, and infrastructure. Classrooms are low quality and grossly insufficient. Conventional methods to teaching and learning continue while the 21st century methods to teaching and learning, such as the use of internet, computers, projectors, simulators to name a few are significantly not available. Furthermore, lack of equipment particularly for information communication technology (ICT), paradigm shift, has made teaching and learning methods of the 21st century appear difficult, and in possibly demoralising for the academic personnel that toil night and day to meet up with the job demand with no beneficial reward.
The source of dissatisfaction for these academic personnel is not just created by the poorly incentivised job and its related poor payment scale, however also created from their working conditions. The work conditions according to Bakotic and Babic (2013) covers a range of issues such as work load, culture, structures, community relations, school operating procedures, physical and social infrastructure such as roads, water, electricity and medical facilities to name a few. Satisfaction relates to how pleased or satisfied people are to their job. Therefore, an academic staff with greater satisfaction will probably hold positive feeling regarding the job, while those who are dissatisfied might hold an unfavorable feeling regarding the job. Hence, the reason why this study is seeking to investigate the impact of school environment on teachers’ job satisfaction.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Teachers' job satisfaction is important to guarantee high quality education. Satisfied teachers are most likely to dedicate their energy and time to teaching, thus, enhancing students' performance (Skaalvik, & Skaalvik, 2017; Reeves et al., 2017). Schools should make sure that teachers are satisfied since teachers are the most important school improvement assets. There is a need to focus on teachers' job satisfaction since it determines teachers' dedication and teaching practices, ultimately affecting students' academic performance (Pogodzinski, 2015). Teachers who are not satisfied with their jobs are most likely to really feel reluctant to prepare lessons and might not properly implement the curriculum. This reveals that there is a need for a school environment that ensures teachers' job satisfaction. School environments characterized by sufficient instructional materials, motivational strategies, participatory decision-making style, and schools that promote teachers' collaboration can improve teachers' job satisfaction. In many nations, an unconducive school environment has resulted in teachers' job satisfaction (Simon & Johnson, 2015).
Studies on teacher job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in Nigeria have succeeded in revealing that no education system can rise over the level of its teachers. This recommends that there is an immediate need for education stakeholders and policy makers to acknowledge that educational quality is mostly based on teachers' job satisfaction. Yet, very little have been done in this area to determine the contribution of such factors as school environment and work orientation to teachers' job satisfaction, particularly amongst teachers in Nigeria. Since studies suggest that teachers have low job satisfaction as a result of inadequate working conditions such as, low pay, high workload, absence of in-service training, promotion, lack of accommodation among others. There is need to investigate empirically the contribution of school environment and work orientation to job satisfaction of academic personnel in secondary schools in Nigeria. This is a gap that this study looks for to establish by examining the impact of school environment on teachers’ job satisfaction.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The main objective of this study is to examine the impact of school environment on teachers’ job satisfaction. However, the specific objectives include:
i) To understand how physical facilities influence job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria.
ii) To assess the extent to which instructional materials influence job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria.
iii) To investigate the extent to which teacher characteristics impact job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria.
iv) To determine how principal factors affect job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria.
1.4 Research Questions
This study will be guided by the following research questions:
i) How does physical facilities influence job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria?
ii) To what extent do instructional materials influence job satisfaction of teachers’ secondary schools in Nigeria?
iii) To what extent does teachers’ characteristics impact job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria?
iv) How does principal factors affect job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
This study will be guided by the following research hypotheses:
i) There is a significant relationship between physical facilities and job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria
ii) There is a significant correlation between instructional materials and job satisfaction of teachers’ secondary schools in Nigeria
iii) There is no significant correlation between teachers’ characteristics and job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria
iv) There is no significant relationship between principal factors and job satisfaction of teachers in secondary schools in Nigeria
1.6 Significance of the Study
The findings from this study will give the government and policy makers insight in forming policy issues on quality assurance and management of secondary schools. This is aimed at continuously improving academic performance over the long term by focusing on students and teachers while addressing all stakeholders needs. The findings from this study will also assist the secondary school leadership to be proactive and lead by example, understand and respond to changes in the external environment, establish a clear institution’s vision of the future, establish shared values and ethical role models at all levels, build and eliminate fear, inspire, encourage and recognize people’s contribution. This will help to bring about a culture of teamwork in the secondary schools in all the facets of operations.
Accordingly, the findings from this study will help in bringing about the excellence in academic performance as well as value addition to the students. The study also will stimulate interest of future researchers to undertake further investigations in this field by identifying areas for further study. The research findings will form a basis for generalization of the recommendations for other education sectors in Nigeria.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The study examines the impact of school environment on teachers’ job satisfaction. Therefore, the study will be carried out among five public and private secondary schools in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
The study limitations were inadequate time for the research thus the researcher was not in a position to cover a large geographical area. The study area was vast between secondary schools which might have made the researcher spend much time. Further the time scheduled to undertake the data collection was limited. For a more conclusive result set, a sample of all secondary schools in all the all the Local Government Areas in the State should have been studied. However, this was not possible due to geographical vastness, financial constraints and time limit.
1.9 Definition of Terms
The under listed terms are relevant to this research study:
Instructional materials: items that aid the teaching learning process so as to achieve the intended objectives
Job satisfaction: how contented an individual or a teacher is with his or her job in the school. Principal factors: these are activities done by the principal of a school so as to achieve the institutional goals
Physical facilities: all material resources needed to impart formal education. They include buildings; laboratories and library, furniture and land.
School Environment: refers to facilities that are available in the school to enhance students learning outcome. It includes school buildings; classrooms, libraries, laboratories, furniture; availability of tables, chairs, chalkboards, shelves on which practical instruments are placed, recreational equipment, apparatus, books, audio-visual, software and hardware of educational technology, size of classroom, sitting position and arrangement.
Teacher characteristics: these are attributes dependent on the teacher for job satisfaction.
