The teachers’ job satisfaction among public primary school teachers in Tanzania

In recent years Public school teachers have been engaging in strike to express their dissatisfaction and annoyance that has led to dramatic drop of pupils’ academic performance. The study investigated factors of occupational potential that were responsible for increased teachers’ job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and their relationship with pupils’ academic performance. The study involved ten public schools in Tanzania from Mbinga district in Ruvuma region. Five schools were selected from urban and the other five from rural area. There were 83 respondents whom 81 were teachers and 2 were district educational authorities. The instruments used for data collection included questionnaires, interviews, and documentary review. Quantitative and qualitative data were analysed by correlation and content analysis respectively. The findings reveal that teachers are greatly dissatisfied with unpaid claims, allowances, poor claims handling, poor salary and fringe benefits. Teachers’ dissatisfaction has affected pupils’ academic performance and rural schools in particular. Satisfying teachers’ needs is paramount for improving pupils academic performance. Factors influencing unpaid claims and poor claims handling should be checked on one hand while teachers’ salaries and fringe benefits should be raised on the other hand.