A Study On The Factors Affecting The Professional Development Of Public Secondary School Teachers In Rural Areas In Cameroon

This study sought to investigate the factors affecting the professional development of public secondary school teachers in rural areas in cameroon.the researcher discribes the situations of teachers professional development in rural areas in cameroon by looking at it from different perspective and brings out stategies that will enhance the affectiveness of teachers professional development in rural areas in cameroon.this research assess the factors influencing the professional development of secondary school teachers in rural areas in Cameroon it also determine how teachers' attitudes toward professional development activities influence their participation in PD activities.it forther investigate the policies that the government have put in place to improve the professional development of teachers in rural areas and find out some possible solutions to mitigate the challenges affecting the professional development of secondary school teachers in rural area in Cameroon The researcher look professional development in three diferent perspectives the professional perspective,the teachers perspectives and the student perspective and a qualitative analyse method was used to analyse the finings.the reseacher used a classified random sampling in this study to select the teachers in the 4 rural schools in Cameroon to participate in the interview to ensure adequate representation.Also to avoid gender biasness,one female and one male teacher from each of the secondary schools were chosen for interviews.In addition,the principals of those schools were taken into account for interviews as well.As for the focus group discussion,6 students were selected in each school for the group discussion.In summary,8 teachers(4 male & 4 female),4 principals and 24 students were involved in this study making a total of 36 participants.All paticipants contribute greatly in the finings.Findings in this study were summarized as per each specific objective.Firstly the researchers assess the factors influencing the professional development of secondary school teachers in rural areas in Cameroon.From the findings the factors that influence professional development of secondary school teachers in rural areas in Cameroon include;mentorship which is their ability to have mentors or to be mentors to other teachers.We also saw that in-service training helps in the professional development of teachers,seminars and workshops,collaboration with other teachers,reading after class time,continuing education and observing other colleagues help teachers in their professional development.Secondly the researcher was also aimed at determine how teachers attitudes toward professional development activities research has proven that your attitude towards something will influence your participation in that thing.This study therefore investigated how teachers felt about professional development and findings from interviews showed that,teachers have positive attitudes towards professional development and belief it is good for every teacher to engage in either professional development activities.Thirdly this study investigated the policies that the government has put in place to improve the professional development of teachers in rural areas.Findings show that the government of Cameroon is doing very little to encourage teachers in professional development.Among the things the government is doing include;the organisation of seminars and workshops which are mostly organized in towns and not in the villages.The government also ensures that teachers are paid in time so as to enable them have money to indulge in any other professional development activity.Nevertheless,this study also investigated possible solutions to mitigate the challenges affecting the professional development of secondary school teachers in rural area in Cameroon.Solutions gotten from interviews include;the building of more classrooms to avoid overcrowded classrooms,that way the number of students per teacher is reduced and the teacher-student relationship is increased.Information from findings also suggested that the teachers should have a constant supply of teaching and learning materials from the government.The major limitation that the researcher faces in this study was the ongoing Anglophone cresis in cameroon as it was difficult to go to this rural areas and therefore suggest that the study should be carrried out again in some years to come.