Organizational Climate and Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Public Primary Schools in Rivers State, Nigeria: The Planning Implications

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VII, Issue XI, November 2020 | ISSN 2321–2705

Organizational Climate and Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Public Primary Schools in Rivers State, Nigeria: The Planning Implications

Iwuoha, Faith Mbua & Ohia, Adanma Ngozi Ph.D.
Department of Educational Management, Faculty of Education, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT
This study investigated organizational climate and teachers’ job satisfaction in public primary schools in Rivers State, Nigeria. Three research questions and three corresponding hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted correlational research design. The population consisted of 5,657 public primary school teachers. A sample of 560 public primary school teachers was drawn from the population using stratified random sampling technique. Two instruments titled “Organizational Climate Scale” (OCS) and “Teachers’ Job Satisfaction Scale” (TJSS) were used for data collection. The validities of the instruments wereensured by experts. The Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficients of (OCS) was 0.75 and TJSS was 0.87. Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used to answer the research questions while probability value of their corresponding hypotheses was subjected to 0.05 Alpha level. It was found that there is significant independent positive relationship between working relationship, leadership style, job location and teachers’ job satisfaction in public primary schools respectively. The study concluded that working relationship, leadership style, and job location which are the variables of organizational climate in this study have significant positive relationship with teachers’ job satisfaction in primary schools in Rivers State. Recommendations include; teachers should always develop good working relationships with their colleagues and other individuals in the school environment. School heads should be dynamic in their leadership style so as to accommodate everyone and educational planners should assist in mapping areas where schools can be sited as this will encourage teachers to perform their jobs creditably.

Keywords: Organizational climate, teacher job satisfaction, primary education, planning implications

Introduction

It is an established fact that the development of any nation is dependent on the quality of her education system. Education is a Human Right that should be accorded to human beings solely by the reason of being human. According to Achuonye and Ajoku as cited in Achuonye (2008) education functions as an agent for the maintenance of social status in the society through the transmission of modern ideas, modern strategies of doing things, modern attitudes and values and creativity compatible with derived direction of change. It is a process that facilitates learning or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs and habits and usually takes place under the guidance of teachers though sometimes, learners may educate themselves. Formal education is normally divided into three stages- the primary, secondary and tertiary stages. The focus of this study is on primary stage.The National Policy on Education. (FRN, 2014:14) defined primary education as “the education given in institutions for children aged six to eleven years plus”.
To uphold the higher stages of the education system, it is imperative to consciously plan for the attainment of the objectives of primary education in terms of inculcating relatively permanent literacy and numeracy including the ability to communicate effectively as well as laying a sound basis for scientific and reflective thinking etcetera. It is important to note that the primary school period is an important period in the life of every human being as it is seen as the “embryo” of the education system hence effective teaching and learning must start at this level. Corroborating this point, Odigie as cited in Mark (2011) pointing out that Bloom’s Taxonomy stated that the rate of intellectual development in people occurs in the following sequence: 0-4 years (50%), 4-8 years (30%) and 8-17 years (20%). If Bloom’s assertion is true, then invariably, any child who receives a haphazard primary education has lost a huge chunk of intellectual development.

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