Incidence and Sources of Stress Among Secondary Schools Teachers in Ekiti State, Nigeria

The incidence of stress is a common knowledge among scholar in the field. Teachers are facing many stressful experiences particularly in Ekiti state such as irregular payment of salary, lack of basic facilities for teaching and lack of motivation which led to lower productivity problem. The thrust of the study therefore, investigated the incidence stress and causes in the midst of post-basic school instructors. The research design employed in this inquiry was descriptive-survey design. The entire teachers in post basic schools in Ekiti state were the target of this study. The representatives of this population comprised 378 teachers, randomly selected from one local government from the districts in the state. Structured questionnaire on incidence, sources of stress and coping strategies adapted from Ugwuja (2009) was the major instrument for the study. Descriptive statistics of percentage was used to answer the questions. It was discovered that: incidence of stress in post- basic -school in was high (86%); teachers’ sources of stress in Ekiti State ranged from irregular payments of salaries, students’ misbehaviour and large class size. Based on the findings it was concluded that irregularly payment of salaries, heavy work load, and lack of infrastructural facilities were causes of stress among teachers in Ekiti State. The implication is that if teachers were under stressful condition teaching productivity will not be significant. It is therefore recommended that school managers and administrators should device techniques of reducing the incidence of stress among secondary school teachers which was found to be high, Government and school administrators should employ more teachers in a bid to reduce teachers’ workload and Seminars and workshops should be organized for teachers on stress coping strategies.