Human Resource practices, teacher engagement, teacher intention to stay among secondary school teachers.

Abstract

Nearly 100,000 teachers leave the teaching profession every school day as another hundred thousand change schools, many in pursuit of better working conditions and more fulfilling careers. The number of teachers intending to remain in teaching is much more less than the tens of thousands of teachers who retire each year even as teacher shortages continue to threaten school performance and the education sector as a whole. This study was therefore purposed to establish the relationship between human resource practices, teacher engagement and teacher intention to stay in a continued effort to underscore the loss of professional efficacy and teacher shortages documented in recent research findings. A quantitative survey design was adopted in the study and out of a sample of 306 teachers selected using convenience sampling technique from a target population of 1,500 that took part in the survey, 222 teachers representing 73% of the sample successfully filled the questionnaires. Correlations and regression analysis procedures were employed to establish the relationships. The results revealed that a unit increase in human resource practice significantly raises teacher intention to stay on average by 0.203 holding the other factors constant (p=0.014). However, an increase in teacher engagement will significantly raise the teacher intention to stay by 0.497 holding the other factors constant. (p=0.000). The revelations therefore point to the need for establishment of human resource departments in schools to address issues that affect teachers by revising management policies and practices that would enhance teacher retention and advocate for the creation of conducive working terms/conditions that would bolster teacher engagement.