Вестник КазНПУ имени Абая, Серия «Педагогические науки», №4 (52), 2016 г. 182
The statement that the attrition of teachers is a diversified problem is not a new finding. Though, for the
future of education, in order to make substantial change in this sphere, more national research must be
conducted and addressed to teacher attrition from the perspectives of local teachers (Elfers et al., 2006;
Hirsch, 2004, 2005).
The National Education Association indicated in their research some evidence about teachers and these
facts are possibly not well known to the public. On average 50 hours per week are given by teachers to their
teaching responsibilities and duties, and teachers assign about a quarter of their own salary on school
materials. They also teach sometimes more than 30 pupils per class, make an average first income, and
teachers come into the teaching profession due to their love of children, to their subject and a desire to make
a change in the next generation. The pressure from parents and a lack of support leads school teachers to the
decision of their leaving (Hill & Barth, 2004).
Therefore, there are a number of factors which are correlated with the current issue of teacher retention:
working conditions (oppressive or encouraging); head teacher support; the salary; teacher morale. The list of
reasons cannot be extended or narrowed to one key factor, but a set of these causes forms the subsequent
determination of teacher’s decision to leave or stay in the career of education. The professional climate also
plays a role, administrators, way of faculty work at different schools are individual and variable. All of these
varieties have possibly an equal contribution to the teacher retention issue.
The literature on retention examines education issue globally and does not separate or treat various
disciplines at a specific context. It shows that both internal and external factors have a contribution to the
teachers’ decision to remain in the career.
Teacher retention literature reports many influences and contexts come into play when teachers are
formulating their retention attributions. These forces are classified as existing within the teachers control or
outside of the teachers control when observed under the attribution theory. Further, these factors combine in
various ways to create the attributional dispositions held by teachers.
Mostly teachers enter the profession with the feelings to be useful for the society, to work and help
children, with a great love to their subject. The study showed that these attributions still remained and helped
teachers to stay in the career. Some teachers comments, “great professional satisfaction of every single
working day, admiration and respect from students, I like my profession despite all challenges”, are showing
their high motivation and they felt themselves the most effective in teaching. These teachers love their job
and continue to teach students. From these intrinsic and extrinsic reasons teachers develop their decision to
stay or leave the profession.
Other factors included the external motivators such as salary, support of administrators and colleagues,
professional development and working conditions. These factors were indicated by teachers at moderate
level. However, they are considered being influential too by participants. Nowadays, society ignored the
social value of teachers in practice. One of those indicators is teacher’s salary and it is not comparable to the
payment of other professions. The administration and peers support, mentoring, and opportunity to develop
professionally also reveals the level of teacher significance.
The amount of teachers’ salary in Kazakhstan is not so large and it cannot be compared to the salaries of
professions with the same education level such as lawyers, doctors and others. Nevertheless, in the current
research, the teachers’ satisfaction with pay and benefits was not the main reason in their decision to stay in
teaching. This factor was ranked by the respondents as non-important reason. However, the participants
identified that low salary was a reason for discouraging teachers from continuing their profession. One
teacher commented, “The society and state need to make our job economically reasonable for people to
select and stay in teaching”. In most cases, the previous research determined salary to be the major reason for
teachers leaving the profession.
Although the reasons of working conditions, workload, students’ behaviour, stress, planning time, a lot of
paperwork, job responsibilities, duties and needless disturbances, were not identified by teachers as main
motivators but they played a role for beginning and experienced teachers. Moreover the technology and
resources are high on the list of needs for teaching in order to reduce teacher workload.
The study showed that external and internal factors that influenced teacher retention can interact with
each other. If a teacher has strong internal reasons to teach such as love of the subject, a desire to work with
children, the need to do good for society and he has a support from the state, society, administration,
colleagues or even parents, that means he will stay in the profession with great pleasure. For every individual