Institutional Factors Influencing Principals’ Governance Practices on Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Public Secondary Schools in Rangwe Sub-county, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the principals’ governance practices influencing teachers’ job satisfaction in public secondary schools in Rangwe Sub-county, Kenya. The objectives were to determine the extent to which principals’ supervision, recognition, support for promotion and improvement of the working conditions influence teachers’ job satisfaction among teachers in public secondary schools. The study employed Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory and adopted a descriptive survey research design. The target population for this study comprised of 38 public secondary schools with 38 head teachers and 420 teachers, due to the small number of schools, census sampling was used to select all the schools and all head teachers. Simple random sampling was used to sample three teachers in each school. The researcher used a questionnaire and an interview schedule guide to get information. Descriptive statistics analysis was used for qualitative and quantitative data. The study findings showed that a majority of the teachers where extremely dissatisfied with their principals’ supervision which in-turn influenced their job satisfaction. A majority of the teachers were dissatisfied with the principal’s recognition practices while a majority of the teachers were contented with the principals’ support for promotion in their schools. The study findings showed that many teachers were dissatisfied with the working conditions provided in their schools causing high levels of job dissatisfaction. The study concluded that there were various governance practices that related to teachers’ principals’ recognition practices, principals’ letters of recommendation, principals’ supervision practices and principals’ improvement of the working conditions to the teachers by the principals’ that influenced the teachers’ job satisfaction. The following recommendations were made that the Principals in Rangwe should develop and nurture a cordial working relationship with the area teachers in order to improve their job satisfaction. There is need for further research on other principals practices’ variables that influence secondary school teachers’ job satisfaction other than the four identified in this research.