Assessing teachers’ ethical performance: A case study of selected rural and peri-urban secondary schools in Mukono District

Abstract

The study was undertaken to find out the moral challenges that teachers meet while performing their duties considering what characterizes a ‗good teacher‘ in the context of moral values and virtues. Even when a teacher is very intelligent and technically competent, if his or her moral character (lazy, dishonest, abusive, sexist, intolerant, etc.) is questionable, their professionalism is also questioned. The study also looks at how, if at all, the teachers‘ professional code of conduct influences their ethical performance, and lastly it seeks to explore how ethical performance can be made more effective. The study was conducted in Mukono district, taking a sample of four secondary schools. The methods used in this research were both qualitative and quantitative specifically including focused group interviews, Individual interviews and questionnaires. According to the research findings, the researcher discovered that, all teachers knew something about teacher‘s ethical conduct but vaguely understood ethical performance. And the majority of the other stake holders like the parents and the PTA members thought that it was a teachers‘ ―thing‖. Hence the need to enforce the teachers‘ professional code of conduct, and also sensitizes all stake holders about ethical performance. According to this research study, the researcher found out that teachers are not sufficiently supported to achieve ethical performance, and as much as there are different tools in place like the teachers‘ code of conduct and code of ethics. However, teachers still do not follow ethical performance simply because there are other factors that come into play such as the role of other stake holders in the education sector that affect ethical performance. Hence the need to enforce the code not only to teachers but also to involve all other stake holders