Professional Ethics and Performance-Based Pay Systems among Secondary School Teachers in Ife Zonal Area

This study investigated the influence of performance-based pay systems on the performance of secondary school teachers in Ife Zonal Area of Osun State Nigeria, and how they observed ethics of the teaching profession. Specifically, the study focused on: identifying the teaching professional ethics the teachers were commonly aware of and they observed; determining the extent to which they observed the ethics; and identifying the teachers’ attitudes towards performance-based pay. While there are numerous studies on teachers’ motivation and teachers’ performance, the linking of performance-based pay for teachers as a factor of motivation and teachers’ observance of professional ethics as an aspect of work performance is barely explored; hence, this study. The study employed the quantitative survey method, using structured questionnaires to collect data from 200 respondents, who were teachers selected with the use of a quota sampling method from the secondary schools selected with the simple random sampling method from all the secondary schools in the four local government areas of Ife Zonal Area. The data collected were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program, and summary statistics. The study found that a considerably high percentage (78.5%) of the teachers observed most of the examined ethics, a very low percentage of them (9%) moderately observed the ethics, while another small percentage of them (12.5%) lowly observed the ethics; this signifies that most of the teachers were aware of and they firmly observed most of the ethics. The study also found that a fairly large percentage of the teachers (63%) wanted a pay scheme that would compensate their performance, while 37% of them wanted their qualifications and duration of service compensated; this signifies that while majority of the teachers preferred a performance-based pay as a fairer reward system, a good number of them preferred a pay system based on qualifications and duration of service because it is more practicable. The study concluded that the effects a performance-based pay system has on teachers’ dedication to the profession and its ethics are not definite, and that teachers are better motivated by other factors which are, in fact, not related to payment. The study contributed to the bank of existing literatures on teachers’ motivation and performance with its specification on performance-based pay as a factor for motivation and observance of professional ethics as an important aspect of performance in the teaching profession.