Any possible dissatisfaction in the workplace can easily result into employees leaving their jobs. Since the beginning of curriculum reforms in South Africa Education Districts nationally, within a short space of time, were faced with frequent curriculum changes which led to teachers having to change their old methodologies to accommodate that particular newly adopted curriculum. At that point teachers needed training and motivation to be able to perform as required and the failure of which would lead to demoralisation and teachers leaving their jobs. Demoralisation in any job situation is the result of over commitment and setting of unrealistic job expectation that can lead to lower staff morale and high staff turnover. Apart from the fact that the education system had been in a crisis from shortage of teachers, it occurred that every year there was a huge number of teachers that leave the profession. In the process of finding out the actual reason teachers were leaving the employment, a mixed-method study was conducted where one teacher per school from fifteen out of eighteen rural high schools of the district was purposely sampled and, therefore, fifteen teachers responded to a questionnaire. Five retired teachers from the same district were conveniently sampled to participate in the interviews. To collect, analyse and interpret data concurrent procedures were used. The findings indicated that the major shortcoming of the education system was the frequent introduction of curriculum changes, without appropriate teacher development, that demoralised teachers to an extent of leaving their jobs and others resorting to early retirement. The authors, therefore, recommended that the education system, when planning to change a school curriculum should introduce the new curriculum to pre-service teachers for them to take it to schools after qualifying.

Username
Password