University dons suffer low morale

A new survey has shown that university lecturers have low remuneration and slow job progression more often than other work-related issues.

The online survey was conducted in July to identify work-related burnout levels among university lecturers in Kenya by UNESCO – International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA) in collaboration with researchers based in the country.

Findings of the survey showed that only about one-quarter (26.1 per cent) of the lecturers sampled said that free training on issues related to stress and work-related burnout” in their institutions are available.

“About two-thirds of the lecturers (66.5 per cent) said they never or rarely sought professional support to help them untangle life challenges,” the report released yesterday states.

“In this survey, work-related burnout is defined as “a condition resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”. In this regard, work-related burnout is not stress caused by a condition that is not work-related, neither is it a one-off condition like feeling tired or exhausted after a hard day at work,” the researchers explained.

It also showed that work-related burnout levels were consistently lower among lecturers in private universities than among their counterparts in public universities. “Burnout levels did not vary much across male and female lecturers. Availability of at least one support mechanism at the university or application of at least one mechanism at a personal level seemed to be associated with lower burnout levels than otherwise,” it adds. The survey involved 161 university lecturers based in Kenya. The report has shown that a vast majority (83.2 per cent) of these lecturers were teaching in public