CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Motivation is of enormous importance with regard to enhancing performance and commitment in any organization. Motivation and performance are very important factors in terms of organization success and achievements. Motivation plays an important role in the organization because it increases the productivity of employees and the goals can be achieved in an efficient way. The behaviour of employees can be change through motivation in any organization. From situation to situation, the level of motivation differs with in an individual (Robbins, Judge, and Sanghi, 2005). Motivation also takes part in an important role for teachers because it helps to achieve the target in an efficient way. Teacher motivation is very important because it improves the skills and knowledge of teachers because it directly influences their performance (Mustafa, and Othman, 2010).The level of motivation and satisfaction of the teachers has a positive effect on their job. The source of the high motivation of the teachers includes opportunities to use special abilities, secure future and the chance to earn good money. If in schools, the teachers do not have sufficient motivation then they are less competent which directly influence the students and the education system.
The relevance of motivation and job performance are very crucial to the long-term growth of any educational system around the world. They probably rank alongside professional knowledge and skills, centre competencies, educational resources and strategies as the veritable determinants of educational success and performance. Professional knowledge, skills and centre competencies occur when one feels effective in one’s behaviour. In other words, professional knowledge, skills and competencies can be seen when one is taking on and mastering challenging tasks directed at educational success and performance (Filak & Sheldon, 2003). The above factors are closely similar to efficacy, and, of course, it is well known that many teachers lose or fail to develop self-efficacy within educational settings (Dweck, 1999). In addition, needs satisfaction and motivation to work are very essential in the lives of teachers because they form the fundamental reason for working in life. While almost every teacher works in order to satisfy his or her needs in life, he or she constantly agitates for need satisfaction. Job satisfaction in this context is the ability of the teaching job to meet teachers’ needs and improve their job or teaching performance.
In recent years references have been appearing in literature regarding series of motivational practices that are dubbed on high performance, high commitment or innovation and are said to help institutions to achieve significant improvement in performance. The aim of motivation is to exert high commitment among teachers to improve in performance. For institution such as Teaching Service Commission to increase performance, it should have highly committed teachers with right attitude toward work (Bame, 1975). Globally, employers are not just interested in people turning up for work, it is their performance at work that the employer pays wages and salaries for because the effort that employees put in their work will obviously affect the level of quality output they attain, an effort is related to the motivation of employees (Bame, 1975). Teachers occupy such a central and vital position in any educational system that their attitudes and commitment have been of paramount interest not only to educational authorities and other stakeholders but also to many researchers (Mensah, 2009).
Teachers are needed in developing countries such as Nigeria but due to poor and unattractive remuneration some professional teachers have left the classrooms to seek for greener pastures elsewhere. However, it is assumed that teachers’ agitations and demands are beyond the resources of the Ministry of Education or the government. As a result, the government in Nigeria and the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) are in a constant stand-off over the increase in salaries, benefits, and improvements in working conditions of teachers. The federal and state governments have argued that the present economic realities in the country cannot sustain the demanded increase in salaries, benefits, and improvements in working conditions. Specifically, they argue that teachers’ demands are beyond the government resources.
Another problem is the government’s position concerning the job performance of the teachers; they accuse the teachers of negligence, laziness, purposeful lethargy, and lack of dedication and zeal to work. They further argue that teachers’ level of efficiency and effectiveness does not necessitate the constant request for salary increase, incentives and better working conditions. While teachers on their part argue that the existing salary structure, benefits and working conditions do not satisfy their basic needs in as much as other sectors of the economy have bigger salary structure, better motivation and enhanced working conditions. They feel Nigeria’s economy is not properly balanced, hence, their demands.
Teachers are expected to render a very high job performance, and the Ministry of Education is always curious regarding the job performance of its teachers. Also, the Ministry of Education demands a very high measure of loyalty, patriotism, dedication, hard work and commitment from its teachers (Ubom& Joshua, 2004). Similarly, the roles and contexts of educations’ motivational methods and tools cannot be underemphasized because high motivation enhances productivity which is naturally in the interests of all educational systems (Ololube 2005).
Statement of the problem
Teachers in Nigeria have expressed a lot of dissatisfaction about the lack of human resource development, poor working conditions, poor remuneration and poor human relations that exist in schools. This has resulted in high teacher turnover coupled with poor results in Senior High Schools due to lack of commitment towards work. Some newly recruited teachers stay at post for barely one year. The operating conditions of service appear to fall short teachers expectation manifesting in resignations, vacation of post, non –resumption at post after teachers leave of absence and study leave.
The general mood of those remaining is not encouraging as they exhibit other forms of withdrawal behaviour such as absenteeism, lateness and passive job behaviour. Unfortunately, in spite of the importance and complexity of these issues, there is very limited good quality literature has been published on them ( Bennel 2004). This research focus on the above mentioned factors. The researcher set out to throw more light on factors influencing teacher commitment to teaching so that management of education institutions can do something to motivate teachers to improve their level of performance.