The study wanted to examine the role of motivation on teacher turnover in public secondary school a case of Nyamagana District. A sample size of 101 respondents, including 90 classroom teachers, 10 head of schools and 1 District Education Officer (DEO) from Nyamagana District in Mwanza were involved in the study. The study involved questionnaires and interviews as tools for collecting data. The study found that there were three categories of factors causing teacher turnover. The first category had poor working environments such as lack of houses, lack of transport, poor school building and lack of training materials as the primary factor. The second category had poor pay; teachers received very low pay compared with pays other employees received in other sectors, and there were no allowances attached in the pay. The third category comprised of; lack of recognition, lack training opportunities and high workload. The study therefore concluded that teacher turnover in public secondary schools in Nyamagana District was exacerbated by poor motivation to teachers. To increase motivation to teachers the author recommends that an education fund be introduced in which organizations will be contributing some amounts of money. The money will be used to provide motivation and school environmental, improvements. The author also recommends that top performers in examinations only should be employed as teachers. And lastly the author recommends for a study to find out how students who do not know how to read and write pass the national examinations and get places in secondary schools?