| dc.description |
The role of quality, qualified and effective teachers is invaluable that one may fail to
come up with proper expression to express the magnitude of their significance in its
exactness. Through classroom interaction with students, teachers work as
transmitters of knowledge, values and skills which work as tools for rural and urban
transformation. Teachers provide education which works as a solution to poverty
alleviation, empowerment, sustainable development and environmental challenges.
Oziambo (2010) asserts that teachers are responsible for high standards in
education, transmission of values and norms to students by teaching them or being
models. They are at the front line of developing students’ understanding, learning
and core values.
Despite such teachers’ significance, teachers do not stay in the teaching cadre.
Teacher retention is currently akin to a puzzle especially when Smith and Ingersoll
(2004) view the decision to enter teaching by now as being related to ‘a sink or swim’
experience. Teacher retention challenges that have been engendering teacher
attrition indisputably called for this study. This paper therefore, firstly attempts to
explore the nature and characteristics of teachers who leave teaching. Secondly, it
seeks to craft strategies that help to obliterate unnecessary teacher attrition so as to
retain good teachers in the teaching cadre.
This study deployed the documentary search to explore the topic under scrutiny. It
concludes that teaching may become ‘a profession at risk’ if no quick measures are
taken to redress the situation. This is due to the fact that Sinyolo (2007) postulates
that teachers no longer like teaching, they have lost the morale to teach and some
discourage their own children to become teachers. Thus, investing in human resource
is indubitable so that working environment for teachers becomes favourable; teacher
salaries turn out to be in proportional to teachers’ qualifications and salaries of
other fields. |
|