Teacher motivation and job satisfaction in senior high schools in the Tamale metropolis of Ghana

Undoubtedly the most precious asset of every society or organization is its human resource. For human capital to spawn appreciable impact on the socio-economic development, investment in education, training, learning, health and nutrition of people are essential. This reality implies that teachers occupy a central role in the social and economic development of their societies. Despite this role, knowledge about what motivate and satisfy teachers within the education industry is limited. This study therefore, sought to contribute to the sketchy knowledge about the underlying factors that are important to teachers, those that motivate and satisfy them and those that cause them to leave the teaching profession. To investigate the concerns therefore, a sample size of 178 respondents from seven (7) Public Senior High Schools in the Tamale Metropolis were interviewed using self administered questionnaires reaching 143 males and 35 female teachers. The main finding of the study is that salary, working conditions, incentives, medical allowance, security, recognition, achievement, growth, students' indiscipline, school policy and status were found to be the ten most important factors of motivation to teachers that could enhance, retain or cause them to leave. There was also the general perception of inequity among teachers when they compare themselves with their colleagues with the same qualifications, experience and responsibilities in non-teaching organizations and therefore feel unfairly treated as professional teachers. They were equally dissatisfied with their pay compared to their inputs (skills, ability, and work load) as espoused by Adams’ equity theory of motivation. The paper recommends that participatory management decision making processes should be adopted to help resolve the issues emanating from the research particularly relating to the “intrinsic” de-motivating factors which could be addressed by the top management of most Senior High schools.