An Assessment of Working Conditions and Effective Teaching in Armed Conflict Zones: The Case of the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon

Abstract

This study sets out to study the effects of teachers’ working conditions on effective teaching in conflict zones. Effective teaching during emergency situations is a salient element as far as the education production function is concerned. Ineffective teaching hampers school internal efficiency as it significantly causes wastages of scarce resources and prevents educational institutions from attaining set objectives. This study looked at teachers working condition in terms teachers’ security, and teachers’ motivation in terms of risk allowance; and how these variables influence effective teaching in the North West Region and South west Region of Cameroon. Within the context of research methodology, the mixed method approach was used in data collection and analysis. The simple random sampling and proportionate sampling techniques were used to obtain a representative sample of 310 for the study. The Instruments used for data collection were the questionnaire and the interview guide. The rationale for using the mixed method approach was to maximize the possibilities of data to be collected from multiple sources in order to ease the understanding of the phenomenon under investigation from various foci. The data was analyzed using the spearman rank correlation and it was found that teachers’ personal security, and use of motivation significantly affects effective teaching in the secondary schools in the North West Region with correlation coefficients of 0.640 and 0.672 respectively with p-values less than 0.05. From this we conclude that working conditions are a strong determinant of effective teaching the within crisis context. Based on the finding, we recommend that school administrators and other stake holders should be create an enabling environment that is conducive for teaching and learning.