FACTORS AFFECTING THE ESTABLISHMENT AND PRACTICE OF TEAMWORK OF TEACHERS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Teamwork among teachers is an important strategy in order to realize educational goals of the country. It has been observed that despite the efforts made by the government and other education stakeholders through different seminars, meetings and workshops on teachers when implementing the programs, establishment and practice of teamwork of teachers in schools is still a challenge. Teamwork in any organization is very important for the organizational development. School as an organization is an institution that has collective goals and is linked to an external environment (Davis, 2004). Schools consist of members who should work as a team for the improvement of the school by utilizing the available resources (Babyegeya, 2002). A good school should have a teamwork which is strong and effective. According to Hallam (1996), the characteristics of a good school are as follows, feeling for the community, have positive atmosphere, have a broad view of education, have an attractive environment, a sense of purpose and self-critical stance. These characteristics lead to the quality education and can be attained when there is teamwork of teachers. Schools attitudes and practices continue to show disunity, selfishness and lack of love among its most essential human resources, educators, as a result poor performance, conflicts and low quality education prevail (Clements, 1981).

Sense of unit is brought about by teamwork and the education stakeholders should interact and help each other in order to solve, improve and increase efficiency in the schools (Brown, 1991). Teachers work alone with groups of learners in classrooms. Teamwork approach assists the teacher to show a value of collaboration and introduce a new spirit of cooperation and collegiality. The teachers can have a greater capacity to think collectively and utilize qualities of people in more creative and effective way to the school which is learning organization (Whitaker, 1998). Teamwork emphasize on collaboration, solidarity and interdependence. The teachers in schools are valuable in all aspects and should be treated with dignity. This ensures humanistic management approach whereby the teachers will be motivated to participate in decision making, delegating duties and commitment to their work (Nafukho et al., 2011).

Expansion of education in Nigeria has involved increasing of the members of schools, and this should go together with the provision of quality education. Teamwork of teachers ensure fully participation in realizing education aims, such aims as personal, social, economic, political, cultural and moral (Hunter, 1998). The higher level education participation especially establishment and practice of teamwork of teachers is the one way of improving education system as the teachers implement education policy. Secondary school teachers are supposed to increase performance so as to produce students who are marketable in the competitive world, since education system is day to day changing according to the development of science and technology in terms of different cultures, different people and different systems. Teachers have therefore reactions and emotions on how to face these challenges. Through teamwork, teachers can be interdependent and all important educational complexities can be done effectively (Levi, 2010). No single person is capable of developing, manufacturing and selling today’s complex products (Dyer and Dyer, 2007).

School is like an industry whereby the students are being given skills, knowledge and attitudes for transformation of science (skills) into technology and productivity and this is major rationale used by government to create public school system and the teachers should be developed as a human resource in education, creation of teamwork is the solution to these education goals (Babyegeya, 2002). Teamwork consists of the elements that show a sense of direction, getting organized by attention to process, procedure, awareness of time, commitment, success, demonstration of communication skills and interaction at high level, and personal qualities such as being open and honest, speaking directly, appreciating the eorts of others (Whitaker, 1998).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

It is been observed that team work is one of the major impediments to efficiency among employees, it affects their output and also organization total output. Team work among teachers is a very important thing or else their might not be effective teaching and learning process . Therefore it was very important to study the establishment and practice of teamwork of teachers in schools since the no of schools have increased which is parallel to the increase of number of teachers. According to the knowledge of the researcher, little has been done to analyze the establishment and practice of teamwork of teachers specifically in secondary schools Due to its important in providing quality education, it was necessary to study the factors affecting the establishment and practice of teamwork of teachers.