A Comparative Study of the Factors Determining Teachers’ Job Performance in Urban and Rural Areas of Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State

Abstract

Recent reports by the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (2017) revealed that while the numbers of schools and children in both rural and urban areas are increasing, the numbers of qualified teachers are not increasing proportionately. This is a problem that needs to be addressed because non-performing schools negatively drawback the country’s educational standard. While scholars have examined the factors that affect the academic performance of pupils in rural and urban areas, there is much to be done on the factors that determine teachers’ job performance in rural and urban centres. It is on this basis that this paper comparatively examined the factors that are responsible for teachers’ job performance in rural and urban schools in Ijebu-Ode Local Government area of Ogun State, Nigeria. A descriptive research method was adopted while the target population involved teachers, pupils, and the school based management committee (SBMC) in public primary schools. The sample size consists of 140 respondents. The breakdown of participants is 80 teachers (40 rural teachers and 40 urban teachers); 40 pupils (20 rural pupils and 20 urban pupils); and 20 SBMC (10 rural participants and 10 urban participants). The sample was drawn from 10 public primary schools (5 rural schools and 5 urban schools) out of a total of 42 primary schools in Ijebu Ode LGA. Three instruments were used to collect data from the participants. Independent t-Test was used to statistically test the mean score of the dependent variables for the two independent groups. The findings of the study revealed that teachers in urban public schools outperform teachers’ from rural public schools on three indicators (i) quality teaching (ii) coverage of the syllabus and (iii) instructional design; while teachers from rural schools outperform teachers in urban school on two indicators (i) teachers’ workload and (ii) evaluation of pupils’ assignments. Recommendations were made on how to improve teachers’ job performance in both rural and urban areas.

Keywords: Urban, Rural, Teacher, Quality Education, Challenges.