Early Retired Teachers’ Perspectives on Leisure Time and Educational Activities: A Way Forward for Retention

Abstract

Most of the teachers are deeply engaged in teaching and administration before retirement, and they cannot find time for leisure and educational activities for their communities due to the heavy workload and pressure of the teaching assignments. Resultantly, the school cannot retain them, and they tend to retire early to improve‘quality of life’. The present study aimed to understand how doteachers spend their leisure time after early retirement? How do they contribute to education, and how can school retain them at the workplace? These questions were explored qualitatively through phenomenological research. Fourteen early retired teacher participants were approached through snowball sampling with the criteria that they should have taken retirement before sixty years of their age or twenty-five years of service or both. The data were collected through a semi-structured interview guide, which addressed the research questions. Thematic analysis was used for the analysis of the interview data. The emergent themes reflected participants’ experiences on three main aspects;leisure time, educational activities and teachers’ retention. The participantswished to explore the world, read books, meet friends, and participate in educational activities to developtheir communities. The study has implications for making policy for theearly retired teache