Teachers service commission motivational strategies and their influence on teachers’ performance in public secondary schools in Migori County, Kenya

Abstract

Teachers are the central elements for the overall school‘s good performance and their commitments to their job are a milestone for school success which comes as a result of motivation. Therefore, for effective and smooth schools operations, the core instruments needs to motivate the teachers through different ways as they execute their roles. This will help maintain reward system which helps create a motivating environment that enhances performance. The teachers‘ motives and behavior occurs simultaneously, but with varying weight. These motives can be synergetic depending on the drive and at the same time antagonistic when the drive is withdrawn as it seeks to improve the efficiency, analysis, and the tools that they can apply to help better the learning outcome. Despite some influences brought about by Teachers Service Commission motivational strategies to all the teachers in the country, there are improved levels of teacher performance from the neighboring counties than Migori County. This study sought to evaluate the Teachers Service Commission motivational strategies and their influence on teacher performance in Migori County's public secondary schools. The objectives of the study were to: evaluate the effect of Teachers Service Commission incentives on teachers‘ performance, determine the extent to which performance of teachers is influenced by Teachers Service Commission‘s career progression , investigate the extent to which Teachers Service Commission‘s care influence teacher performance and finally, evaluate the impact of Teachers Service Commission‘s strategic focus on performance teachers . Cross sectional survey design was employed for the study with a population of 3010 teachers, 271 secondary school principals and 10 Teachers Service Commission Sub-County Directors of Education. Simple random sampling pegged at 30% was used to select 81 school principals‘, purposive sampling to select 10 TSC Sub-County Directors of Education and Cluster sampling was used to select 346 teachers, making a total of 427 respondents. The research questionnaires were administered to teacher and the principals, Focus Group Discussion to the teachers while the interview guide was used to collect data from TSC Sub-County Directors of Education. Pilot study was done in each category of the respondents, calculated at 10 percent of the total sample size to establish validity of the research tools: where 36 teacher, 8 principals and 2 Sub-County Directors of Education were included. Test-retest method was used to test reliability and Pearson‘s product moment correlation coefficient was further used to determine the reliability coefficient of .70 and above ascertaining the reliability of the instruments. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics where; frequency counts, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used, while qualitative data was coded, transcribed and organized thematically. The researcher got a research permit before going to the field, adhered to research norms and avoided plagiarism. The study established that; Incentives offered by the employer can motivate the teachers at (r= .169, p = .000). The career progression prospects has minimal positive motivational influence on teacher performance at (r=.246, p=.000). There is minimal positive motivational influence on teachers‘ performance on care provided by Teachers Service Commission at (r=0.363, p<.05) and finally, Teachers Service Commission strategic focus has moderate positive motivational influence on teacher performance at (r=0.549, p<.05). From the findings, the null hypotheses stated were all rejected. The findings of the study may be of value to the Education developers, the employer and stakeholders to help improve the reward system and invest significantly on the teachers who enhance improvement and the best results on learners‘ academic achievements.