Abstract:

The article reports a study conducted to establish ways to establish and sustain quality teaching and learning and the educational implications of teachers’ psychological needs. The study is significant to establish the psychological needs of teachers, and to establish how they can be supported as means to promote their psychological health, stress reduction, and prevent burnout, turnover and attrition. Since teachers are custodian of knowledge required for good classroom practices that supports quality teaching and learning, a need exists for education ministries to continuously monitor their circumstances and well-being. The study used a mixed method approach, wherein 160 questionnaires were distributed to randomly sampled teachers. Structured interviews were conducted to ten purposively sampled teachers. The findings revealed that poor conditions of work, poor school administration and management, contextual factors, lack of professional autonomy impede on quality teaching and learning. The study concludes that to promote quality teaching and learning and learners’ academic achievement requires a good psychological health status amongst teachers. This study concludes that Limpopo Department of Education should come up with initiative and support of psychological health programmes, such as wellness programmes, free psychological services for teachers.

Keywords:

Teacher attrition, turnover, burnout, psychological needs, psychological health, stress reduction.