PROFESSIONAL COMMITMENT OF TEACHERS AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF WOLAYITA ZONE, SOUTH NATIONS NATIONALITES AND PEOPLES REGION

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to assess professional commitment of teachers and its contribution towards students’ academic achievement in selected secondary schools of Wolayita zone. To this end, the research employed descriptive survey design. A total of 695 teachers 254 and 236 students’ CGPA were selected by using simple random sampling method, whereas 14 principals, 6 supervisors and 6 TDP coordinators were included based on availability sampling. Questionnaire and interviews were employed to collect data. The data obtained were analysed using statistical tools such as mean, standard deviations, frequency, percentage, ANOVA, chi-square test and spearman’s correlation coefficient. Accordingly, the findings revealed that the level of professional commitment of teachers to their profession and to the learner was high, whereas the professional commitment of teachers for the colleagues and organization was moderate. However, the overall professional commitment of teachers was found moderate in the selected secondary schools. Besides this, the association between professional commitment of teachers and academic achievement of students was examined and the analysis revealed that there was moderate association between professional commitment of teachers and students’ academic achievement in selected secondary schools. This indicates that the contribution of professional commitment of teachers is moderate. Finally, the findings of this study revealed that lack of recognition of teaching profession in the society; low salary and low fringe benefits were factors that negatively affected the professional commitment of teachers. The implication is that teachers’ performance in their profession is low and which in turn implies that students’ performance and academic achievement was moderate in the schools studied in the Wolayita zone. Therefore, it is recommended that, the zone and woreda education expertise, school principals, supervisors, TDP coordinators should give emphasis on teachers’ professional commitment and find out the reasons and the areas where teachers have low commitment