Abstract
Understanding the determinants of teacher mobility is important in order to implement effective policies for the recruitment, retention, and fair allocation of teachers. The teacher transfer policy implemented in Punjab, Pakistan, is intended to address corruption and a fair allocation of teachers in public schools. However, the policy has implications for teacher mobility. This paper presents survey findings on teacher mobility patterns in public schools in Punjab, Pakistan, examining the extent and determinants of mobility in comparison with teachers in private schools. In the survey, 1002 in-service teachers participated, and 46% reported changing school at least once during their teaching career. The findings show that teachers who changed schools in their early career, with an average of two years of teaching experience, gained higher salary benefits by changing schools compared to experienced teachers, with an average of 14 years of teaching experience, who never changed schools. In comparison with early career teachers, experienced teachers who never changed school had lower salaries but higher satisfaction with life in general and with the school as their workplace. The most common reasons for changing school were lack of teaching resources, difficulty in commuting to school, unmanageable student–teacher ratio, and no chance of promotion in their teaching career. Teacher mobility was slightly higher in public schools compared to private schools, despite implementation of a merit-based transfer policy. A binary logistic regression model was constructed with the outcome of teacher mobility (or not), with a base figure of 54%. By adding gender, marital status, school type, length of teaching experience, and teachers’ satisfaction, the model increased correct predictions to 62%. Teacher salary and teaching workload did not explain any variation in the model. These findings have implications for teacher transfer policy in public schools and lessons for private schools to retain teachers by offering longer contracts and reliable pension schemes. Policymakers must consider facilitating teachers’ satisfaction with their workplace, particularly by making public schools in rural areas attractive places for the retention of teachers in early career phases.
Highlights
Teachers play an essential role in educational change and development [1]
The sample achieved in this study suggests that teacher mobility is slightly higher in public schools than in private schools in Pakistan
Teachers who changed school in their early career, with an average of two years teaching experience, gained higher salary benefits by changing schools compared to teachers with an average of 14 years of teaching experience, who never changed schools
Summary
Teachers play an essential role in educational change and development [1]. In order to achieve children’s universal access to primary and secondary education, all public schools are expected to have fair deployment and allocation of teachers. Nature of job contracts, transfer policies, student–teacher ratio, workload, and satisfaction with work environment can contribute to teachers’ decisions of changing schools which in turn has implications on teacher retention, teacher shortage in disadvantaged regions, and compositional disparities in teaching quality This survey study shows teacher mobility is slightly higher in public schools compared with private schools, despite after a successful implementation of rationalization and merit-based transfer policies. It is perhaps the implementation of rationalisation and transfer policy that has made teacher mobility more volatile in public schools compared with private schools The findings of this survey study show that higher salaries and time allocated for workload are not related to the teachers’ decision to change schools; instead, an important factor that retains teachers is their satisfaction with work environment. The findings of this survey have to be treated with caution due to the voluntary and unrepresentative sample, but they provide an insight into the possible association between teacher retention and working environment
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