The challenging working conditions driving teacher demotivation in northern Ghana

Over the past two decades, Ghana’s Ministry of Education (MoE) has pursued ambitious reforms to improve education quality and learning outcomes, including introducing two years of free, compulsory pre-primary education for four- and five-year-olds. However, while this has positioned Ghana as a regional leader in early childhood development access, and near-universal kindergarten enrolment has been achieved, quality remains a persistent challenge.

The single most important school-based determinant of student learning is teacher quality. Evidence shows that when teachers are motivated – investing time and effort in their teaching – student outcomes improve. Conversely, demotivation leads to reduced emotional investment and lower classroom performance and student engagement. Over time, demotivation can culminate in teacher burnout – a state of emotional exhaustion and reduced professional efficacy that has been linked to high staff turnover. Indeed, Ghana’s schools face a severe teacher retention crisis; one survey found that only 15% of secondary school teachers are motivated to stay in their roles. The MoE has identified kindergarten teacher retention as a key challenge in promoting child development through government-provided early childhood education.

With teacher motivation being a critical determinant of education quality and learning – affecting teacher wellbeing, professional performance and retention – it is essential to understand the factors that erode or sustain it.

The impact of working conditions

Across Ghana (and indeed in other low- and middle-income countries), teachers face difficult working conditions; against this backdrop, the risk of teacher demotivation is heightened. The challenges include large class sizes (particularly in public schools), inadequate teaching and learning materials, limited parental involvement, weak administrative support, and high expectations from school management and communities. Meanwhile, teachers earn low salaries compared to other professions, have limited opportunities for advancement and professional development, and can experience work-related emotional and physical strain. Kindergarten teachers may feel the effects more acutely; they are managing the social, emotional and academic needs of very young children, and tend to earn less and receive less recognition and respect than their peers in higher grades.

The drivers of demotivation in northern Ghana

A recent Thrive study analysed the drivers of kindergarten teacher demotivation in northern Ghana, where the challenges are especially pronounced.

In the northern regions of Ghana, the education system operates under severe resource constraints, and working conditions for teachers are markedly more difficult than in the country’s southern regions. The typical challenges Ghanaian teachers face are magnified (for example, an MoE Education Sector Performance Report shows that in 2018, the average pupil-classroom ratio in northern Ghana was 55:1), but many teachers in northern Ghana are also posted far from their home communities – often to regions where they can hardly speak the local language and to remote rural areas with poor living conditions and limited amenities. Inadequate facilities and linguistic mismatches between teachers and pupils constrain learning.

Educational attainment in the north lags far behind the south. In 2008/09, school non-attendance among children aged 6-14 was three times higher in the north (28%) than in the south (9%). It is estimated that 39% of three- to four-year-olds in the northern regions of Ghana are off-track cognitively.

Our study aimed to evaluate how acutely difficult working conditions – which translate into high job demands and low job resources – are associated with demotivation, to help inform policies that can strengthen teacher motivation, retention and support in low-resource contexts.

We used detailed primary survey data collected from 330 public kindergarten teachers in three regions in northern Ghana, along with our recently published Demotivation Framework (which conceptualises teacher motivation as a dynamic process that unfolds across three interrelated stages of a teacher’s career) and an adaptation of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (recognised as the leading measure of burnout). We analysed how job demands, job resources and contextual factors are associated with teachers’ emotional exhaustion (broadly the feeling of being drained and depleted of energy, which we used as a proxy measure for demotivation) and reduced personal accomplishment (a feeling of inefficacy and a lack of productivity and achievement).

The incidence of emotional exhaustion among kindergarten teachers was high, emphasising the strain of working in resource‐constrained environments. Nearly half of the teachers experienced signs of emotional exhaustion. About one in three showed clear signs, and nearly 10% reported levels of exhaustion that could be considered severe.

The risk of experiencing emotional exhaustion is shaped less by a teacher’s personal traits and more by structural conditions. We found that large class sizes, limited professional development and limited parental engagement or interest are significantly associated with emotional exhaustion. These factors amplify teachers’ workload and stress and exacerbate fatigue – undermining teacher motivation. On the other hand, having spent more time with children was positively associated with teacher motivation.

We similarly also found that even when teachers feel emotionally depleted, many still see themselves as capable and committed: every highly exhausted kindergarten teacher also maintained at least a moderate – and often high – sense of personal accomplishment. This suggests that commitment and strain often coexist, and that motivation can wear down over time. Teachers who report high personal accomplishment tend to experience greater exhaustion.

Apart from spending more actual time with the children, other protective factors included teachers working in their local home community and having undertaken professional development in the past 12 months. Receiving recognition and respect from citizens and leaders was associated with a reduction in the stress felt and sustained teachers’ sense of purpose and effectiveness; a teacher’s social status is considered a significant determinant of their motivation to remain in their role.

We were also able to obtain rare insight into how demotivation may translate into teachers exiting early childhood education. Continued emotional strain, limited recognition and few advancement opportunities potentially push teachers to seek alternative roles. About 38% of teachers reported that if they were to leave their current kindergarten role, they would either retire from the profession or move to a more senior kindergarten position. The remaining 62% indicated they had aspirations outside of the kindergarten sector: to become primary or secondary school teachers, take other education‐related roles outside schools, leave education entirely, or pursue further studies – suggesting that many kindergarten teachers do not view their long‐term future to be within early childhood education, which dovetails with the MoE regarding kindergarten teacher retention as a key challenge.

Improving teacher motivation and retention

The study provides valuable, context-specific evidence on sustaining teacher motivation and wellbeing, and is a foundation for future longitudinal and experimental work. It highlights the fragility of motivation in low-resource educational environments and illustrates how teacher demotivation is part of a professional trajectory shaped by structural working conditions and the social valuation of early childhood educators.

It is clear that steps need to be taken to break the cycle of demotivation and attrition in low‐resource settings. Measures to sustain motivation in the short term could include reducing class sizes and workload, expanding professional development, and strengthening professional resources and community-school partnerships. Lasting motivation and retention will, however, undoubtedly require reducing structural pressures on teachers; elevating the status of – and societal respect for – kindergarten teaching; broadening career advancement prospects; and improving salary parity with primary education.

Read more about the study in this briefing and working paper. A blog focusing on the Demotivation Framework can be found here.

Banner image credit: Zach Wear on Unsplash