Examining the Relationship Between School Privatization and the Job Performance of Primary School Teachers in Shahrbabak County

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between school privatization and the job performance of primary school teachers in Shahrbabak County. Methods and Materials: This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlational in terms of method. The statistical population consisted of all fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade primary school teachers in Shahrbabak County, totaling 130 individuals. According to Krejcie and Morgan’s table, a sample size of 97 was selected using stratified random sampling. The research tools included a job performance questionnaire for teachers developed by Barati (2009) and a researcher-made school privatization questionnaire. The reliability of these questionnaires in the present study, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha, was 0.78 for school privatization and 0.72 for teachers’ job performance. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistical tests including the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Pearson correlation, and regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings: The results indicated that there is a relationship between school privatization and the job performance of teachers. The contribution of each component of school privatization to predicting teachers’ job performance varied. Conclusion: The findings of this study demonstrated a significant positive relationship between school privatization and the job performance of primary school teachers in Shahrbabak County. In other words, the more the components of privatization—such as managerial autonomy, competitiveness, accountability, merit-based evaluation, and private sector involvement in school management—are strengthened, the higher the level of teachers’ job performance.