BURNOUT AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY.

Abstract

Teachers' experience emotional exhaustion and develop a cynical attitude toward teaching and students (depersonalization). Feelings of exhaustion and ineffectiveness continue as mental and physical resources are depleted in the pursuit of unreachable and sometimes unrealistic goals (Maslach, Schaefeli & Leiter 2001).The teacher then experiences a reduction in accomplishments, leaving him or her with a loss of self-esteem and dissatisfaction with these job accomplishments. This chain of event ultimately interferes with the burnout in teacher's ability to continue to meet teaching demands. Thus, the three dimensions of the burnout syndrome: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment, begins. Consequences of teacher burnout can lead to feelings of hopelessness, absenteeism, increased turnover, and decreased job performance. The results of current study indicated that male primary school teachers score higher mean scores than female teachers in depersonalization than female teachers had of personal accomplishment. No significant difference between private and government primary school teachers with reference to job burnout were found. However private school teachers feel more emotional exhaustion as compared to their counterparts in government schools.