CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1           BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

It is not out of place to say that motivation has always be an important and puzzling technique for managers and employers to achieve their organizational goals. As a result, personal management problems and its effects on secondary school teacher’s performance spring from lack of motivation and incentives for the staff and or employees of the organization.

Motivation is referred from people’s behaviours and cannot be directly observed or measured. However, personal management has evolved a member of techniques to improve workers performance through motivation.

Ukeje (1992:76) stressed that “motivation” is a force which energizes and induce a staff to perform. Based on this assertion, Dugguh (2004) has it that, differences in levels of performance is a reflection of difference in levels of motivation. At any point, staffs vary in the extent to which are willing to direct their energies towards the attainment of the objectives of the organization.

The performance of the staff is as  a result of the ability or skills of the workers to use this ability or skills in the actual performance of the job and the motivation they receive to use this ability or skills in the actual performance of the job.  The researcher is interested in the personnel management problem and how it affects the performance of secondary school teachers in Ankpa Local Government Area of Kogi State.

The staff has suffered from poor motivation which has contributed to poor out-put in the educational system. Apart from the problem of retention of staff and irregular payment of staff salaries: non-implementation of promotions, there is illegal deductions of staff salaries by the post primary school management board the sate universal basic education board and by the education secretaries and the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) officials.

Besides, officials use loan schemes to exploit the staff all staff are forced into taking loans where shy lock interests are charges so much that some teachers end up having no take home salaries, school supervisors and monitoring officers have abandoned their primary assignments to witch-hunt teachers. All these could affect teacher’s performance.

Moreover, the teacher’s remunerations such as leave grants, rents, subsidy, disturbance allowances and transport have since been subjected to lottery and negotiation between the state education Board and officials of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT). Incremental steps for teachers are sometimes stopped and those promoted have been denied their promotion arrears. The inability of personnel managers and the employers to rectify this problem has frustrated the hope of teachers.

Another big problem facing the teachers is the refusal of government to implement teachers salary scale (TSS). As a result of this, students are forced with consequences of this anomaly, and as a result, personnel managers and employers should employ a useful strategy to improve the staff performance, productivity and attainment of educational goals.

Personnel management generally requires the creation and maintenance of an environment which individuals work together in groups towards the accomplishment of a common objective.

Achievement can also be realized when the manager is aware of what motivates his staff. It is against the background of the above that the researcher is conceived to determine it lack of training and retraining, salary, personnel relationship and leadership style affect the performance of teachers in secondary school in Ankpa Local Government Area of Kogi State.

1.2      STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In most educational institutions, the staff or employees pay little attention to the performance of their job as little or no attention is paid to their needs.

The neglect of employees’ welfare nowadays does not only precipitate industrial action, but also retards what could spur them to put their best for achievement and actualization of organizational goals and objectives, many times Nigerian universities are on strike which is a problem between management and personnel and next could be the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) over denied benefits or non-payment of salaries allowance or implementation of promotions and financial benefits. There is very low morale and esteem in the educational sector. This is evidenced in the poor attitudes towards teachers and lack of motivation to enable them increase their performance it is against this background that the researcher is prompted to appraise problems of personnel management and their effects on secondary schools teachers performance.

1.3      PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The main purpose of this study is to find out the level of motivation of secondary school teachers in Ankpa Local government Area and the nature of administrative problems.

The study has specifically the following objectives:

1.  Determine if salary issues affects teachers performance.

2.  To determine if teachers are motivated through training and retraining affect their performance.

3.  To find out if teachers are motivated through regular payment of salaries.

4.  To determine also how regular payment of other benefit affect teacher’s performance.

1.4      RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following research questions are formulated to guide this study;

1.  Will motivation of teachers through training and retraining of teachers reduce personnel management problems in teacher’s performance in secondary schools?

2.  Will regular payment of staff salary reduce personnel management problems in teacher performance in secondary school? 

3.  Will personnel relationship affect secondary school teacher’s performance?

4.  Will physical working environment affect teacher’s performances in secondary schools?

1.5      SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study is aimed at appraising personnel management problems and their effects on teacher’s performance in secondary schools. The result of this work will enable the ministry of education and government to improve the Nigerian teacher’s problem of low productivity, motivation and inefficiency being the result of negligence of teachers.

In addition, school inspectors and supervisors in conjunction with the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) will be informed through this study on how to devise lasting solution to problems affecting job performances in general with special references to teachers who are still on the job

The issue of training and retraining of teachers will be addressed and the Ministry of Education to seek ways of monitoring teachers for better and higher performance to achieve the goals of the educational sector.

1.6      SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research is basically aimed at finding out if motivation of teachers through regular payment, training and retraining of teachers, payment of teachers other entitlements reduce personal management problems in the secondary schools in Ankpa Local Government Area of Kogi State.

1.7      OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

Personnel Management: This is the planning organization compensation, integration, and maintenance of people for purpose of contributing to organizational, individual and educational goals. It seeks to develop efficiency of teachers and improve their performance to achieve, set educational goals through adequate supervision, co-ordination, organizing, motivation and discipline.

Teacher performance: It is refers to the ability of the teacher to achieve meaningful result in his profession to the full based on the teacher personnel disposition.

Motivation: This is to mean the process of arousing actions that produce one or more activities which are sustained by the mobilization and continuous flow of energy within an individual (Robinson 1976).

Effect: Is something that inevitably follows an antecedent (as a cause or agent) or power to bring about a result.

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