Teachers Morale: Satisfaction and Annoyance Among the Teachers Working at Secondary Level in Private Sector of Karachi

This study investigated the teachers’ morale in an outlook of satisfaction and annoyance among the teachers working at secondary schools in private sector of Karachi. Literature reported the paramount position of teachers in society was an effecting factor which was related to their job satisfaction and motivation to sustain in teaching profession. Teachers’ productivity was the result of job satisfaction and motivation. This research addressed the factors associating teachers’ job satisfaction and annoyance in the context secondary schools of Karachi. Qualitative research paradigm used to explore the perception of secondary teachers in Karachi. Semi-structured interview protocol was used to record the opinion of secondary teachers about the factors of annoyance and job satisfaction. A total sample of 12 teachers was chosen as the participants by using Purposive sampling. Data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings obtained from the qualitative data proved Maslow’s theory of need in job satisfaction and annoyance. Findings also reported the themes including social benefits, meaningfulness of job and self-esteem was validated by the researcher as a factor for teachers’ morale. This research implies better remuneration for the teachers and healthy working environment for more conductive learning and healthier development of students.


Introduction
In 21 st century organizations are shifting their focus more on its employees' morale and job satisfaction issues 1 . In education institutions, the issues regarding teachers' morale, job satisfaction and annoyance has reached to its peak due to which the low productivity of teachers is interpreted in terms of students' poor educational achievement, disharmony in school culture and deteriorated social environment of the school 2 . This implies teachers' job satisfaction as an important reason in maintaining and determining the social environment of an school 3 . Like many developing countries and in Pakistan the issues related to teachers' morale and job-satisfaction has never been the part of academic discourse 4 . Zembylas and Papanastasious 5 stated that teachers' morale, jobsatisfaction and annoyance should be the matter of policy making process at state level. Alwi et al. 6 indicated in a research related to private secondary schools in Karachi about the available gap for new researchers to investigate more on the topic of teachers' morale, satisfaction and the causes of annoyance.

Statement Of The Problem
Demographically, Karachi is bearing the status of Metropolitan city of Pakistan and one of the most thickly populated in nature. Karachi has more 1 Kuratko, Donald F. "Entrepreneurial leadership in the 21st century: Guest editor's perspective." Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 13, no. 4 (2007): 1-11. 2 Conley, Sharon C., Samuel B. Bacharach, and Scott Bauer. "The school work environment and teacher career dissatisfaction." Educational administration quarterly 25, no. 1 (1989): 58-81. 3 Ibid., p. 81 4 Khalid, Salman, Muhammad Zohaib Irshad, and Babak Mahmood. "Job satisfaction among academic staff: A comparative analysis between public and private sector universities of Punjab, Pakistan." International journal of Business and Management 7, no. 1 (2012): 126. 5 Zembylas, Michalinos, and Elena Papanastasiou. "Sources of teacher job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in Cyprus." Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 36, no. 2 (2006): 229-247. 6 Alwi, Shahzada Khurram Khan, Maroof Bin Rauf, and Kamal Haider. "Teachers' job satisfaction and the role of principles for effective educational system in secondary schools of Karachi, Pakistan." Research Journal of Educational Sciences ______________________________________________ISSN2321 (2015): 0508. than 200 million population as reported by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics 7 . In this situation state run schools are enough in number to cater the growing need of quality education for Karachiites. Private Schools serve in this situation as catalyst. In private schools system teachers are expected to discharge their responsibilities in the presence of great accountability. This situation is directly correlated with teachers' morale, satisfaction and the causes of annoyance and effect on their choice to continue teaching as profession 8 . This small scale research investigates the factors associated with teachers' morale, satisfaction and the causes of annoyance among secondary school teachers in private schools of Karachi. Maslow's theory of need guides this research from the lens of job dimensions: social benefits, administrational support and meaningfulness of job 9 .

Significance of the Study
Over all purpose of the present study is to investigate the factors related to secondary school teachers' job satisfaction and job annoyance and how these factors contribute to teachers' morale to sustain in the profession. A limited review of literature reveals that there are few researches available regarding the teachers' morale, job satisfaction and annoyance related to the private secondary schools of Karachi. The prime significance of this research is to facilitate private schools and their administration to foster the conducive working environment for the teachers in order to facilitate teachers for the better educational outcomes

Assumptions
 Social benefits, meaningfulness of job and esteem are the factors of job satisfaction.  Maslow's theory of need influence job satisfaction of teachers.

Research Questions
1. How social benefits influence job satisfaction and job annoyance? 2. Does meaningfulness of job create job satisfaction? 3. Does work environment affect in job satisfaction? 4. Does self-esteem affect teachers' job satisfaction?

Literature Review
Hoppock 10 in an old study studied the correlation among job satisfaction, religion, emotional adjustment, interest, social status, fatigue, age and community. Hoppock found that only one-third employees had expressed their annoyance and all other employees expressed job satisfaction in the purview of job satisfaction, religion, emotional adjustment, interest, social status, fatigue, age and community. Job satisfaction is a multi-dimensional terminology which includes a lot of aspects in itself; it varies from person to person 11 . Furnham, Eracleous, & Chamorro-Premuzic 12 stated that job satisfaction is a collection of positive attitudes and emotions which is acquired at workplace.
Normann, Bayat, and Indermun 13 stated that satisfied and content workers efficiently better than distorted and disturbed mind. Normann, Bayat, and Indermun observed, "Imbalances caused through non-exposure to education, development, training and mentorship have created a vacuum in terms of skills for women and this, coupled with the discriminatory practices inherent in our …society" 14 . Norman et al. 15 also reported about the 'Glass Ceiling' 16 for women as following: Even in organisations whose policies support women, prevailing historical attitudes and job pressures undermine them; women's lives have been expanded, but the attitudes of many corporate 10 Hoppock, Robert. "Job satisfaction." (1935). Ibid. 16 Ibid., p.72 Teachers Morale: Satisfaction and Annoyance Among the Teachers Working at Secondary Level in Private Sector of Karachi cultures weigh down and constrain what women feel is achievable….It is clear and evident that sexual harassment, male chauvinism, work life balance, as well as organisational structure and culture are among the top barriers that require urgent attention and which inhibit women's advancement at work. The glass ceiling and its effect was another problem analysed, …, the difficulties and obstacles which women face in order to progress in the organisational hierarchy -not only in management roles, but throughout other levels and categories of occupations as well.
Zembylas & Papanastasiou 17 in a research conducted in Cyprus stated the following: Teachers emphasised their satisfaction with interactions with students, relationships held with colleagues and opportunities to contribute to the growth of individuals and the development of society. Sources of dissatisfaction were social problems and their impact on teachers' work, students' lack of interest and bad behaviour, the centralised educational system and the lack of professional autonomy in schools, and teacher evaluation and promotion prospects. Some of the factors are predictable but others are less so… respondents. Based upon our findings, schemes such as merit pay were predicted to be counterproductive in service organizations which employ professionally trained people.
Sylvia& Hutchinson 21 referred many studies related to teachers' morale, jobsatisfaction and annoyance while indicating that teachers, job morale job satisfaction and annoyance relied on lower order needs satisfaction parallel with the higher order needs such innovation, contentment of the work and professional and personal attainments are the elements of teachers' job satisfaction.
Xiaochun, and Yiqun 22 stated that job burnout was inevitable phenomenon. Satisfied and motivated employees were the cornerstones for an organization they served the system very efficiently and competently for uplifting of organization. Therefore, administration should play an active role in employees job maintenance and measure the job satisfaction level of its employees. In another research Ingersoll 25 reported the following: The results of the analysis indicate that school staffing problems are not primarily due to teacher shortages, in the technical sense of an insufficient supply of qualified teachers. Rather, the data indicate that school staffing problems are primarily due to excess demand resulting from a "revolving door"-where large numbers of qualified teachers depart their jobs for reasons other than retirement. Moreover, the data show that the amount of turnover accounted for by retirement is relatively minor when compared to that associated with other factors, such as teacher job dissatisfaction and teachers pursuing other jobs. The … [research] concludes that popular education initiatives, such as teacher recruitment programs, will not solve the staffing problems of such schools if they do not also address the organizational sources of low teacher retention.

Methodology
Qualitative research methodology was used to record the perception and opinion of private school teachers about their morale, job-satisfaction and annoyance toward their teaching profession through semi-structured interview protocol. The data was collected from District East, Centre and Korangi Disctrict of Karachi from five different private schools. From each school a male and a female teacher as participants were selected who were currently teaching from grade sixth to matric classes. The participants voluntarily granted the informed consent and all ethical considerations were followed.The identities of research participants were protected and every aspect of research had been disclosed to the research participants. The interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and latter deleted to protect the identity of research participants. Thematic data analysis was conducted where the focus was on the three major themes teachers' morale, social benefits, self-esteem. 25 Ingersoll, Richard M. "Teacher turnover and teacher shortages: An organizational analysis." American educational research journal 38, no. 3 (2001): p. 499.

Meaningfulness of taching as a Profesion
When participants were inquired about the reasons for selecting teaching as a career 8 Out of 10 participants answered positively and mentioned their passion to choose teaching as a career due to the reasons of higher social status, respect, viewing teaching as an opportunity to serve the nation. All 10 participants were agreed that teaching is meaningful profession or job which kept teachers' morale high.
To investigate the satisfaction level of participants' researcher asked the question how long the research participants would continue teaching as a profession. Five interviewees (three females and two males) responded positively while agreeing to remain in secondary grade teaching till the end of their career. Two males and one female participants agreed to switch toward the teaching of higher grades for better remuneration. One male and a female participants stated that due to low salary structure and no selfesteem of teachers in private sector they would quit teaching as soon as possible for another profession.
When participants were asked about rejoining of teaching as a career four participants (two males and two females) showed their agreement. These participants expressed that they take teaching as a serious and meaningful profession. Six participants opted for another career rather than teaching. These six participants expressed their annoyance toward teaching because low salary structure, parental influence on school management, large class size and limited opportunity for career advancement.

Social Benefits of Teaching
When participants were asked to express their morale, job-satisfaction and annoyance in perspective of social benefit the participants expressed their discontentment. 7 Out of 10 participants (4 males and 3 females) expressed their despair in terms of low salary structure based on bargaining process because of the absence of standard criteria teachers' hiring. These respondents did not view any social benefits of opting teaching as a professional career. Three participants added the other reasons including poor leadership skills; heads are usually authoritative and their weak interpersonal skills, excessive planning and managerial responsibilities for teachers, workload and excessive competition among the colleagues were the main factors of teachers' annoyance.
When participants were asked about the reward system in their organization as a social benefits. Majority of the participants (04 males and 05 females) were dissatisfied. All participants agreed the private school systems did not have any mechanism of monitory incentives or any reward systems from their organization. Participants (02 males and 01 female) expressed their discontent that private school systems did not have any vision regarding the uplifting of socio-economic status of their teachers. The Participants (03 Males and 05 females) were agreed on secondary school teaching is socially acceptable and less challenging profession for the females and it did not have any significant output for male teachers.
Participants were further asked about the collegial relationships in perspective of Social support mechanism to cope-up with professional strain. Majority of the participants (04 males and 05 females) were satisfied with the collegial relationships and they enjoy the time with their colleagues. All the participants were contended with their present collegial relationships.

Self-Esteem and Job Satisfaction
Participants were also questioned about their self-esteem and their jobsatisfaction. The participants (04 males and 05 females) expressed that personal and professional attitude of hierarchy, disappointing comments from the administration and no appreciation against sincere efforts caused low self-esteem among teachers. The participants agreed that low selfesteem in their organizational setup motivated the participants to quit from the teaching profession or high job-dissatisfaction.

Discussion
This research observed that teachers of private secondary schools of Karachi had different reasons of job-satisfaction and annoyance. Alagbari, A. "Job satisfaction among a sample of general education head teachers in Eastern region of Saudi Arabia." Journal of golf and Arabic island studies 29 (2002): 169-197. regarding the hiring and professional development of current tier of teachers. 4. This research recommends that private secondary system should introduce a rigorous appraisals system for the teachers. There must be staff management cell to listen the concern of teachers, resolve their queries and make them motivated to work efficiently.

Conclusion
This research concludes that teachers' morale, job satisfaction and annoyance among secondary school teachers in Karachi have received less attention of private school owners. There is neither a policy nor any data available about secondary school teachers' issues and low morale in Karachi. This research suggests the qualitative approach to understand the dynamics of influential factors impacting on the teachers' morale, job satisfaction and annoyance from humanistic point of view.