Long-Staying Rural Teachers: Who are They?

Abstract

I SSUES of teacher recruitment and retention in rural and isolated areas have received considerable attention in Australia and North America. Research findings have influenced policy and many training incentive programs and packages are in place. Little attention, however, has been given to long-staying rural teachers and why they are satisfied to stay in locations which others in the profession find disagreeable. This report analyses available studies and, among other things, reveals much variation in the definition of 'long-staying'. A survey was administered to 427 long-staying rural teachers, teachers who had been in their current school for at least six years and were not planning to move within twelve months. It sought information on professional pre-and inservice education, satisfaction, commitment and community. There emerged a profile of a professionally satisfied, community integrated, family oriented teacher who enjoyed the rural lifestyle and environment. The results carry strong messages for teacher education and teacher selection processes.

School Location and Academic Achievement of Secondary School in Ekiti State, Nigeria

“…In his own contribution on rural /urban differences, Boylan (1998) reported that rural schools were inferior and lacked in the range of facilities; the researcher agrees with Obe (1984) and Kemjika (1989) that a lot of coaching of urban students is done to prepare students for public examinations thus promoting the spirit of competition and rivalry which may be public examinations thus promoting the spirit of competition and rivalry which may be lacking in the rural pupils, probably owing to limitations in exposure and experience.…”

“…In such location, their pattern of school lives are characterized by dilapidated buildings, which form extension to old ones thus forming a sort of patchwork, with others growing too old and no longer viable. According to Banford (1973), some of the schools apart from the fact that they are too costly to run, some have been deserted by their pupils….. teachers in the development of a stereotype about rural schools, Boylan (1998) reported that rural schools were inferior and lacking in the range of facilities with high staff turnover and suffered from lack of continuity in their curriculum. He pointed further that they are staffed by young, beginning and often in experienced staff who regrettably, would not conform with socio-cultural ethos and above all, offered a restricted curriculum, especially to secondary school students.…”

Teacher Attrition and Retention Research in Australia: Towards a New Theoretical Framework

“…A unique study sought the perspective of indigenous Australian teachers regarding the factors they believe promote retention or attrition of non-indigenous teachers in their communities (Hall, 2012). A further study sought the perspective of 'long-staying teachers', defined as teachers who have remained in the profession for more than six years with no immediate intention of leaving, in an effort to identify those factors that assist in retention (Boylan & McSwan, 1998). Of course, teachers have intimate insights about their own careers and experiences, but they are also unlikely to be objective participants.…”

“…A further impediment to the reliability of this measure is the use of different forms of questioning, and different time frames for requesting information about future intentions, a problem also found in an international review of literature relating to special education teacher attrition and retention (Billingsley, 2004). In this review, two studies requested information about participants' future intentions in five years' time (Ashiedu & Scott-Ladd, 2012;Paris, 2013), while a further two requested intentions in five and ten years' time (Boylan & McSwan, 1998;Ewing & Smith, 2003). How these questions were framed is not always clear and this further muddies the waters regarding the replicability of the studies.…”

Student teachers’ perceptions of a Wits rural teaching experience project: What to learn and improve

“…It is possibly easy to be bias and stereotypical about rural areas from urban community discourses, and doing community service and interacting with learners might address some of the negative stereotypes depicting rural schools as inferior and staffed by transient and inexperienced teachers (Boylan and McSwan 1998). In addition, the interaction with learners is important, to possibly address the notion of 'them' and 'us', which creates distance and makes immersion into the space challenging.…”