The impact of selected retention strategies on public secondary school teachers retention in Tanzania: a case of Lushoto district council

The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the selected retention strategies on the public secondary school teachers’ retention the case being Lushoto District Council. It was specifically examined the impact of strategies toward creating good working environment, compensation and the potential access to training and development. Questionnaires, interview, and observation were used to collect data from 20 schools in which 87 teachers were reached. Furthermore District Human Resource Officer (DHRO) and District Education Officer (DEO) in secondary department were reached. The findings revealed that, while teachers were satisfied with job security and leadership style especially of heads of schools, most of the teachers were dissatisfaction with compensation scheme, training and development and school accommodation (teachers’ houses) and other school infrastructure and work facilities. On other hand teachers’ turnover intention showed to be high with 66.7% of respondents intending to quit from their work station and 51.7% of the respondents intending to quit from the teaching profession. From the findings it was concluded that compensation and working environment had quite low impact to retention. Therefore, recommended that, the government should review retention strategies especially the compensation scheme on salary, teachers’ accommodation and social services such as electricity which was shown to be the most important motivating factor.