Memoire Online - Primary education and entrepreneurship in East Africa: a case study of private schools for the poor in Kibera (Kenya)

Considered the linking point between the investors and the target audience (pupils), teachers in the educational field play an important role in the process of delivering what could be described as the `product' that is the teaching and learning. As such, an analysis of the teacher's own observations of the investment was deemed necessary. In order to assess teachers' satisfaction, questionnaires were sent to 25 teachers of 5 private schools in Kibera. The questions sought to find out if they were happy with their working environments with regards to different aspects. The 12 female and 13 male teachers' age of the five schools ranged between 21 years old and 41 years old, with a mean of 28 yrs and a standard deviation of 6 yrs. (See table and Figure 22)

	N	Minimum	Maximum	Mean	Std. Deviation
Teacher's age Valid N (listwise)	24 24	21	41	28.17	5.954

The study equally presents a valuable point related to the teachers of private schools in Kibera: The qualifications or better still their highest education level. Of the 25 teachers in the 5 schools, 7 of them have attained the secondary school level (school up to age 16-18), while 14 have a college certificate and 4 of them have a diploma.(see table 11). These two factors (Teachers' age and qualifications) are a determinant factor in assessing their satisfaction level. The following development addresses this issue.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid Up to Secondary	7	23.3	28.0	28.0
Up to college certificate	14	46.7	56.0	84.0
Up to Diploma	4	13.3	16.0	100.0
Total	25	83.3	100.0
Missing System	5	16.7
Total	30	100.0

In understanding the degree of their satisfaction, we set to scrutinize their respective opinions towards certain issues, the main important consisting of:

Only 3 teachers out of 25 reported to be satisfied with their salaries while 13 said they were dissatisfied and the remaining 9 very dissatisfied. Their average monthly salaries ranged from a minimum wage of £28 to a maximum of £95, thus a mean of 53.94 and a standard deviation 19.921(see table 12). Most importantly the average monthly amount earned by teachers differs from one another depending of their highest educational level. The teachers' whose highest education level is up to secondary school earn less money than their colleagues whose highest education level is up to a diploma (see figure 24).

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Std. Deviation

Monthly salary from teaching at this school

Valid N (listwise)

25
25

53.94

19.921

The study equally found that in most schools, the agreed amount of salary was not paid to teachers on a regular basis. This is considered in serious handicap in the teachers' motivations as more than 40% teachers said this was one of their first important problems with private schools in Kibera (see figure 25).

Over 96% of the teachers expressed that they were satisfied with the amount of leave that is granted to them in their schools and just 1teacher out of 25 declared being dissatisfied. This is quite valuable information for the teachers in Kibera. The holidays or leave period offer an opportunity to focus on something else not related to teaching and thus prove to be revitalising in terms of energy.

The status in the community in many developing countries is an important aspect which determines the incentive for joining the teaching profession by many youngsters. For the case of teachers of private schools in the slum of Kibera, 1 out of 25 felt «very satisfied» with his social status, while 19 reveal they are «quite satisfied» and 5 expressed a negative point of view concerning the issue (see table 13)

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid very satisfied	1	3.3	4.0	4.0
quite satisfied	19	63.3	76.0	80.0
dissatisfied	5	16.7	20.0	100.0
Total	25	83.3	100.0
Missing System	5	16.7
Total	30	100.0

The term work environment means the cooperation ties that prevail on one hand between the teachers and the school administration and on the other, between the teachers and the pupils both in class and in the community. At this effect, our study found that there was a divergence of opinions. 1 teacher out of 25 said they were satisfied with the working environment, while 11 said they were quite satisfied. On the negative side of the group 10 teachers declared being dissatisfied and finally 3 of them reported as being very dissatisfied.(See figure 27)

The facilities offered to teachers play an invaluable role in the knowledge transmission process. Without these, the act of teaching would simply be more difficult especially when dealing with children from poor homes whose parents cannot afford all the learning materials. As the figure below presents it, a vast majority of teachers (17) do not value the facilities that are put at their disposal. They feel dissatisfied with the overall facilities in their schools. The remaining teachers are divided into three categories: 1 teacher says he is very satisfied with the facilities, 5 are quite satisfied and finally 2 teachers are very dissatisfied (see figure 28).

Concerning the school buildings, an unprecedented number of teachers expressed their dissatisfaction. Like it was the case with pupils, the teachers in a great majority think their school infrastructures including the buildings and the furniture are very poor. 2 teachers said they were either very satisfied or satisfied, while 14 said they were dissatisfied and finally, 9 out of the 25 said they were very dissatisfied.

Finally, a question was asked to the teachers requesting them to rank in the order of importance, what they thought were the crucial problems they face as teachers in the slum of Kibera. Three major points emerged from this question. 19 teachers reported that poor infrastructures was their first and most important problem follow by lack of facilities which 17 teachers said was of second importance and finally, a number of 14 teachers mentioned irregular salaries as the third problem.

It would seem that teachers' satisfaction in private school investment in Kibera (taking this to be infrastructure etc) varies from one teacher to the other. However, our study has shown that the satisfaction of teachers in Kibera is quite difficult to assess from an individual points of view. The general trend that could be noted here is that in a great majority of cases the teachers believe that issues regarding their salaries, the infrastructures and the buildings in private schools of Kibera need to be addressed.

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid first important problem	7	23.3	36.8	36.8
second important problem	7	23.3	36.8	73.7
third important problem	5	16.7	26.3	100.0
Total	19	63.3	100.0
Missing System	11	36.7
Total	30	100.0

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid first important problem	9	30.0	52.9	52.9
second important problem	4	13.3	23.5	76.5
third important problem	4	13.3	23.5	100.0
Total	17	56.7	100.0
Missing System	13	43.3
Total	30	100.0

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid first important problem	6	20.0	42.9	42.9
second important problem	5	16.7	35.7	78.6
third important problem	3	10.0	21.4	100.0
Total	14	46.7	100.0
Missing System	16	53.3
Total	30	100.0

Primary education and entrepreneurship in East Africa: a case study of private schools for the poor in Kibera (Kenya)

4.5.2 Teacher satisfaction