Abstract
Proper treatment of teachers as necessary human resources in the development of knowledge, novel skills, innovativeness, and creativity to young generation is a critical component in the fourth industrial development in Africa. This chapter sets to localize the position of teachers in the time of fourth industrial rejuvenation in the context of Tanzania. A phenomenological research design was employed to study the sources of stress, effect of job-related stress, and workable strategies adopted to cope with job stress to improve work performance. Purposive sampling was used to select 13 informants for in-depth interviews and 50 participants for Focus Group Discussion. Work-related stresses were reported to intensify absenteeism, turnover, and poor work performance among teachers while socialization and religious congregation were reported as positive coping strategies to counterbalance job-related stress. The study recommends designing of sustainable socialization program to lessen stress among teachers to improve their work performance.
TopIntroduction
Commitment of teachers as necessary human resource to the teaching profession is an important ingredient to the creation of requisite human capital envisioned for industrial development. On the contrary, stressed teachers are likely to endanger the quality of teaching and learning and consequently may undermine the future of industrial endeavour (Brewer & Brewer, 2010; Campbell, 1999; Kaufman, 2001). Equally, the discourses of human resource management have been in the forefront of scholarly debate and have taken precedence in the management since the advent of the first industrialization process in the developed world. In the first industrial revolution, management of human resources has been an essential component for increased productivity (Brewer & Brewer, 2010; Mahmood et al., 2012). Nonetheless, the advent of classical school of thought in management by Taylor and colleagues during industrial revolution has been criticized for its inclination to economic rationality to manage human resources, where monetary incentives were used to maximize employees’ effort to productivity (Campbell, 1999; Sridhar, 2008) but overlooked psychological gratification to improve work performance.
Apparently, the classical school of thought in management was criticized for ignoring emotional and psychological side of individuals in workplace (Brewer & Brewer, 2010). On the other hand, human relation approach by Elton Mayo and associates has been critically denounced for responding to organized powerful group of actors on behalf of others (Bruce & Nyland, 2011). Therefore, the disregard of psychological element of human resources, including teachers has been the cause of stress and weakened commitment to productivity in workplace (Eres & Atanasoska, 2011; Ganster, 2004; Kaufman, 2001; Koech, 2014; Mattila et al., 2003; Yazon & Ang-Manaig, 2019). Therefore, in order to clearly understand the place of human resources, especially teachers in the industrialization process, the effect of job related stress among teachers should not be omitted in connection to the development of other industrial sectors.
For teachers, stress has been influenced by many related factors, either from the families or organizational factors. In Africa, the most frequently reported sources of stress include delay or denial of promotion, denial of fringe benefits, delay in being paid agreed salary, poor communication between superiors and subordinates, shortage of staff, lack of recognition and duplication of functions (Manabete et al., 2016). Research findings have proved the stress to have ‘made living unpalatable for teachers and worsened teaching itself as a profession’ (Adeniyi et al., 2010; Ali et al., 2014). Sources of stress have been reported to include laughable salary, handling overcrowded classrooms; heavy workload and home-work interference (Alhija, 2015; Koech, 2014; Okeke & Dlamini, 2013; Steyn & Kamper, 2006). Arguably, insufficient salary has intensified teachers’ stress at workplace, and as a result, they often start looking for other sources of income to counterbalance the undesirable teaching conditions (Anangisye & Barrett, 2005).
Tanzania, like other African countries, has been experiencing the challenge of job stress to teachers, which are likely to negatively impact on the quality of teaching and learning (Mkumbo, 2013). These have deleterious consequences on the creation of human capital attuned with industrialization motives of the nation. For example, teachers have been reported to demonstrate pervasive claim and grievances on issues such as salary arrears, leave and medical allowances, delay in promotion and transfer allowances (Gregson, 2000; Mkumbo, 2013; Pargman, 2006). Impliedly, if teachers’ claims and grievances will not be addressed timely, creation of innovative and creative human capital for industrial development will also be jeopardized. In Tanzania, teaching seems to be the most challenged profession with regard to work-related stress (Anangisye & Barrett, 2005; Mkumbo, 2013; Mkumbo, 2012) and is more likely to account for wastages of resources than any other profession. As education system stands in a pivotal position and precursor of other sectors, any wastages occurring in the system will have undesirable spill-overs to other industrial development.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Stress: Stress is a state of psychological or biological tension, which is experienced by individuals facing extraordinary demands, constraints or opportunities, coupled with perceived pressures of one’s life, that lead to emotional imbalances. Psychologically, stress is a feeling of mental imbalance and tension. Biologically, stress is a reactions due to physiological process which takes place within an individual as a result of overproduction of chemicals and hormones due to unusual external stimuli which causes high blood pressure and individual’s inability to overcome the external stimuli (for details see Fink, 2009).Stress can be real or perceived threat to the physiological or psychological integrity of an individual with consequences in physiological and/or behavioural responses, which occurs in reaction to somatic challenges such as competition, environmental harshness, and mediated by epinephrine and norepinephrine (Mogilski et al., 2019). Therefore, Stress represents a challenge to the homeostasis of the human body, which range from genetically regulated processes of human development to varying degree of social and environmental conditions.
Teachers’ Work Performance: These are activities which an individual teacher is able to undertake productively as measured by goals assigned by superiors and resources utilized to perform those activities. It can be conceptualized as a measure of successful accomplishment of teaching responsibilities, including other related school activities.
Industrialization: Generally, industrialization is understood as any productive activities related to new innovation, creativity, skillfulness of workers and increased profit by maximization of machines and human effort. In Tanzanian context, industrialization has been understood to mean any manufacturing industry that contribute to innovation and growth of production technology, creation of massive employment in small and medium scale manufacturing industries such as textile, food and beverage, and iron and steel industries (Simon Mwang’onda, 2018).
Coping Strategies: Coping strategies in the current study can be described as psychological patterns that individuals use to manage thoughts, feelings, and actions encountered during various stages of ill-like conditions called stress. Coping strategies reflect the repertoire of responses to the stress that the individual has available and can use successfully (Hamdy, 2004).
Coping: Coping as implied in this study, should be understood as a framework of thoughts and actions teachers use to combat a threatening situation in relations to individual abilities to handle different teaching responsibilities. Coping mediates between antecedent stressful events and distressing consequences or a manner of confronting a stressful situation and dealing with it (Endler, 1997).Coping is the ability to generate and maintain psychological well-being despite living with a serious condition (Folkman, 1997)and is linked to better psychological adjustment outcomes (Smith & Carlson, 1997).
Job/Occupational Stress: Job stress reflects the individuals’ reactions to the characteristics of work environment, which is considered as a threat by an individual, demonstrating a mismatch between individuals’ capabilities and the work environment (Jamal, 2007). It is a condition, which represents the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when job requirements do not match the worker’s capabilities and resources available.