Factors Contributing to Teacher Attrition in Senior High Schools in the Tano South and North Municipalities, Ghana

This study explored the factors contributing to teacher attrition in public senior high schools in the Tano South and North Municipalities in the Ahafo Region, Ghana. The concurrent mixed method research design was adopted for the study. Four schools were selected for the study using purposive sampling method. The teacher population of the schools was 300. Stratified and simple random sampling methods were also employed to select the sample of 120 teachers for the quantitative study and 12 headmasters were purposely selected to collect the qualitative data for the study. That meant that the instrument used for the study were questionnaire and unstructured interview guide. Means and standard deviations were used to analyse the quantitative data while verbatim responses of the interviews were used to analyse the qualitative data. The major external factors that contributed to teacher attrition were low salary, inadequate support from administration and high workloads. Again, job dissatisfaction, pursuit of alternative careers and family issues were the internal factors that contributed to teacher attrition. The study also revealed that, teacher attrition affects the quality of education delivery: negative impact on students’ performance, loss of instructional time and difficulty in finding experienced and qualified teachers. The researchers therefore recommend that salaries of teachers should be improved to retain them in the teaching profession. Again, heads of Senior High Schools should make sure they provide teaching and learning materials and textbooks to teachers for them to enjoy their lessons in the classroom.