| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to investigate the determinants of job satisfaction among teachers in public primary schools in the slums of Nairobi County. The study examined the influence of demographic characteristics of slums, like lack of proper roads, planned buildings and other basic amenities besides socio-economic set-up, on levels of job satisfaction among public primary school teachers in the slums of Nairobi. It was to determine the constraints faced by public primary school teachers in Nairobi slums in relation to job satisfaction, adequacy of learning and teaching materials and physical resources in public primary schools, and their effect on job satisfaction and to establish an average class size handled by teachers in public primary schools in the slums of Nairobi County in relation to teachers' job satisfaction.
The research design used was descriptive survey. The population of the study consisted of 30 public primary schools in the slums of Nairobi County with an establishment of 542 teachers. Out of the 8 districts, Makadara, Dagoretti and Langata were selected to provide the sample schools which were randomly selected. The target population was public primary school teachers from the slums of Nairobi. The research instrument used was the questionnaire, whose variables were tested for content validity and reliability. To determine the reliability of the instrument, the researcher used split - half method, where the 24 questions in the questionnaire were split into two categories of even and odd numbered items.
The results from the two groups were compared using the Pearson's product Moment correlation coefficient, and the reliability found to be 0.82. The instrument was personally administered to 10 public primary schools in the slums of Nairobi County, from Makadara, Dagoretti and Langata Districts. These were randomly selected with purposive sampling being done for the schools, which served as stations for the respondents. The questionnaire return rate was 85.3.3%. The researcher employed the use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software to guide in presentation and analysis of data.
Findings indicated that socio-economic status of the community played a major role in teachers' job satisfaction. On conditions that contributed most to teachers' dissatisfaction, out of 122 respondents, 41 mentioned poverty, 36 mentioned uncooperative parents while 21 decried high crime rate. While giving suggestions for areas for improvement, 56 respondents cited roads and other poor physical conditions while 47 cited sanitation, hygiene and health. 33 mentioned insecurity. 48 of the respondents were slightly satisfied with access to teaching and learning materials, and this lowered morale for them.
69 of the respondents in this area also felt that salary paid to them was low yet workload was high, making them unable to prepare adequately and make recommended follow-up. This was attributed to the high enrollment in the classrooms, of which 48 felt highly dissatisfied. 51 were highly dissatisfied with workload caused by class size. Despite all these, 55 respondents were satisfied with their relationship as colleagues. The key recommendations of the study were that the government should increase the funds disbursed for free primary education to cater for sufficient supply of teaching and learning materials. If text books were to be supplied, the ratio to one pupil was expected to be 1: 1, yet this was not the case.
Further increase teachers' salary to mitigate on high rate of inflation, employ more teachers to ease the existing workload and accord teachers accommodation in special zones to ensure easy access to schools, or facilitate acquisition of houses since rent in most areas is high. There is need to conduct further research in areas concerning teaching and learning facilities in most public primary schools in the slums of Nairobi and to study the impact of such facilities on primary school teachers in the slums. Research should also be conducted on training of teachers on management of parents and community in the slums. | en_US |
