SCHOOL PERFORMANCE AS AN ANTECEDENT FOR QUIT INTENT AMONG TEACHERS: LESSONS FROM PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NAIROBI CITY COUNTY
SCHOOL PERFORMANCE AS AN ANTECEDENT FOR QUIT INTENT AMONG TEACHERS: LESSONS FROM PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NAIROBI CITY COUNTY
Elizabeth Wangui Njuguna - Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Prof. Mercy Gacheri Munjuri - Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Prof. Florence Kagendo Muindi - Faculty of Business and Management Sciences, University of Nairobi, Kenya
ABSTRACT
In the last two decades, the teachers service commission in Kenya has been battling with teachers quitting their jobs for lucrative opportunities elsewhere such as in the media, financial institutions, private academies, non-governmental organizations and content creation in the creative industry. Many others quit teaching to take up other administrative roles at the Ministry of Education as quality assurance and standard officers where terms of service are more lucrative than the TSC offers. This has created an acute shortage of teachers estimated at 61,671in 2019, 66,718 in 2020 and 57,822 in 2021. With the declining performance in over 30 percent of public secondary schools in Nairobi County within the same period, there is need to determine the influence that school performance has on quit intent among public secondary school teachers in Nairobi City County. The objective of the study was to determine the influence that school performance has on quit intent among public secondary school teachers in Nairobi City County. The study adopted the positivist philosophical orientation in which descriptive cross- sectional survey research design was preferred. The target population for the study comprised of 2048 teachers in the 84 public secondary schools in Nairobi City County. From which a sample of 207 respondents was selected using purposive sampling from 69 schools. A structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data while secondary data on performance was obtained from the responding schools. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and simple linear regression analysis. Hypothesis testing was based on regression analysis results. R2 was used to determine the goodness of fit of the model while F-statistic was used to determine the overall robustness of the analytical model. Significance of the variables was determined using p-values at 0.05 level of significance. Results were presented in graphs and tables. Results illustrated a dwindling performance in KCSE, average performance in co-curricular activities, high prevalence of indiscipline cases and high completion rate. Regarding quit intent teachers in Nairobi City County had moderate intentions to quit. Further, results showed that school performance had a significant (P<0.05) negative influence on quit intent indicating that holding all other factors constant, an increase in school performance would reduce quit intent among public secondary school teachers in Nairobi County. It was thus concluded that school performance significantly influences quit intent among public secondary school teachers. The study recommended that the Ministry of Education, the TSC and Head teachers should come up with policies aimed at improving school performance and teacher motivation such as provision of requisite resources such as books and other learning materials, adoption of new technology, rewarding teachers in schools that have outstanding performance through promotions and rewarding highly trained teachers.
