Implication of Professional Development on Teacher Retention in Public Secondary Schools of Nyabihu District

Professional development has been considered and functioned as a booster of any employees’ capacity and career growth, teaching included. This assertion is true in the sense that professional development leads to promotion and career change. Professional development improves employee dedication and capability by providing access to education and training opportunities in the workplace. The Rwandan government has been undergoing a stressful massive recruitment of teachers of secondary schools in order to respond to the needs expressed in NST1 of having improved quality education and building economic based education. The recent recruitment of the teaching staff included the non-certified teachers who eventually were introduced to teaching for a short period. However, it was observed that the latter introduction plays a minor role in retaining teachers in their profession as they keep moving from their job due to the major reason of lacking enough confidence in handling teaching practices. Nyabihu District has been identified among the districts that recognized high teacher turnover for several years back. Many solutions have been thought through REB and MINEDUC and continuous professional development processes have been adopted to update teachers’ capacity in teaching profession in order to stabilize the teacher retention. The main objective of this study was to explore the implication of professional development on teacher retention in Nyabihu District, Rwanda. The highlighted specific objectives were (i) to assess the contribution of induction and mentoring on teacher retention in public secondary schools of Nyabihu District (ii) to analyze the effect of the career ladder pathway on teacher retention in public secondary schools of Nyabihu District (iii) to determine the role of working condition on teacher retention in public secondary schools of Nyabihu District (iv) to identify the contribution of Teacher preparedness on teacher retention in public schools of Nyabihu District. This study used mixed method research design as a method of investigation that associates or integrates both qualitative and quantitative forms. The current study population is made of 662 teachers, 45 head teachers of government secondary schools and 45 Directors of education (DOS), thus the target population is 752. In this research purposive sampling was used to select schools and respective teachers, Directors of studies, Head teachers, in those schools due to their concern in the implementation of professional development in their schools. Questionnaires and interviews were utilized by the researcher to gather data. Tables and graphs were used to display the data after they had been examined using descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages). Generally, the findings of the study indicated that new teachers are not inducted which shows that this dimension is poorly planned during teachers’ recruitment (34 % of respondents strongly disagreed and 31.5% disagreed) against less than 25% of the respondents who have positively supported each of the items about induction and mentoring of teachers. The findings again indicated that the tendency of the majority of the respondents directed towards the disagreement side of the statements under career pathway development (13.3% strongly disagreed and 40% disagreed) against less than 10% who approved that career pathway processes exist in the schools as one way for professional development. Moreover, the findings indicated that the existing working circumstance neither support teachers nor promote their feeling and mind to do well their profession. Finally, the findings indicated that respondents were against the point that the preparation and planning are important aspects of good teaching and pull teachers to stay in the profession. Therefore, the research recommended that the government institutions in charge of implementation of education policies in regard of teacher professional development wake up for the raised issues such that the teacher retention in teaching profession can be maintained in Nyabihu District and in Rwanda in general. The recommendations also went to innovation of many other mentoring and coaching initiatives that aim at retaining teachers at work together with teachers own initiative to increase their level of education for them to become more professionals.