ABSTRACT
The study examined the Influence of Age Falsification on Adjustment of Teacher Retirees in Nsukka Education Zone, Enugu State. Ex-post-facto research design was adopted for the study .A sample of 125 teacher retirees was randomly selected from 257 teacher retirees in Nsukka Education Zone. The study was guided by four research questions and two hypotheses. Influence of Age Falsification on Adjustment of Teacher Retirees Questionnaire (IAFATRQ) was used for data collection. To ensure the validity of the instrument, the instrument was subjected to face validation by three experts, two from the Department of Science Education and one from Educational Foundations. The reliability index of 0.89 was obtained. The data generated from the study were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The result of the study showed that gender was not a significant factor on age falsification and psychological adjustment of teacher retirees. The findings also showed that gender influences age falsification and social adjustment of male and female teacher retirees. The findings further reveled that gender was not a significant factor on age falsification and economic adjustment of teacher retirees. Based on the. findings, recommendations were made which included that government should pay the retirees their benefits immediately after retirement without stress, for this will encourage them not to have negative mind towards retirement.
INFLUENCE OF AGE FALSIFICATION ON ADJUSTMENT
OF TEACHER RETIREES IN NSUKKA EDUCATION
ZONE, ENUGU STATE
BY
OKONKWO, MARTHA NONYELUM
PG/M.Ed/10/52452
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
SEPTEMBER, 2014
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Retirement refers to the period of one’s life after the person has stopped work at a particular age. Stonier (2004) defined retirement as withdrawal from office or official position or to give up one’s business or occupation. Olusakin (2001) defines retirement as a situation in which a person leaves a job he has been used to in order to face another stage in life whereby he now settles down to establish his own private business or job which he does at his own convenience. In this context, retirement is a period of change in one’s life which could be enjoyable for some people and frustrating for others. However, this is dependent on the way the person involved sees this situation. So, while some retirees acknowledge that retirement is reducing the number of work hours, from full time to part time, some others see it as working on a voluntary basis or ceasing from all work activities paid or unpaid.
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Retirement is of two major types. These are voluntary and mandatory retirements. Voluntary retirement according to Omeje (2002), is a situation whereby the retiree feels like resting after some years in service while the mandatory retirement is the type stipulated by government policy for all civil servants with emphasis on age limit and years of service, whichever one any intending teacher retiree is involved, it needs proper preparation ahead of this change in life. In developed countries of the world, a worker has to sometimes make material, social and psychological preparations as he approaches retirement, unlike in developing countries like Nigeria where little or no preparations are made (Nwafor, 2002).
In Nigeria, some of the workers especially the teachers had no pre-knowledge of what retirement entails and because of this, some tend to undertake voluntary retirement. Some who are aware of the difficulties associated with retirement, like delays in processing and payment of retirement benefits, try to avert retirement; hence, according to Jarvis (2006), as a result of the inability of the tiers of the government to implement enabling legislation on retirees’ pension, the serving civil servants resort to falsification of age. In the same context, Ochiagha (1999) asserts that teachers and other civil servants falsify their age to avert impending frustration, anxiety, fear, low esteem and penury arising from retirement. Falsification by Grangaard (2000) is the action of falsifying information or a theory or the act of producing something that lacks authenticity with the intent to commit fraud. Consequently, age falsification involves the fraudulent altering of one’s age. In the word of Idowu (1988) age falsification is the act of altering documents regarding to one’s age fraudulently to avoid being retired. Similarly, Nwafor (2002) asserts that falsification of real age in variance with biological age has become a disturbing phenomenon. According to Amina (2008), it becomes more glaring when one considers the fact that those who are supposed to be preparing for their retirement falsify their age with impunity and waste away in office. According to Ani (2000), these particular set of workers are always young on paper but appear old and weak. All these as stated earlier are aimed at avoiding the hardships retirees experience in our society today.
For instance, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) in her bulletin of March, 1994 exposed how retired teachers experience hardship, anxiety, income problems and other pathetic conditions on retirement. The effect of this is that those who are yet to retire use every means available to carry out falsification of record of their age, records of service and sometimes plead with and bribe the officers responsible for retirement matters not to enlist them among those due to retire. It is alleged that most teachers feel very uncomfortable when getting close to retirement as they have to wait for a long time under various hardships before receiving their retirement benefits (Eyaro, 2005).
Retirees are expected to adjust to these prevailing circumstances but they fail to do so due to long stay in service resulting from falsification of records and age. Adjustment in this context involves one’s struggle to get along or survive in his social environment. Lazarus (2003) sees adjustment as a man’s efforts successfully or unsuccessfully to deal with life in the face of environmental demands. This change in environment therefore becomes instrumental to adjustment. Consequently, this involves psychological, social, economic and health adjustments.
Psychological adjustment involves the way retirees relate with people around their environment and their feelings about life before their retirement. According to Kelves (2000), psychological adjustment refers to how retirees relate well with people around them, thinking and communicating positively about life after service. A well socially adjusted retiree is one that relates well with his family, enjoys and cherishes any support given to him, sees himself as somebody who would contribute to the development of his community and ready to take leadership role among his kinsmen at retirement.
On the other hand, a well economically adjusted teacher retiree is normally one who planned well ahead of retirement by way of savings and putting in place income generating investments or ventures before retirement. It is obvious that a serving teacher who leaves the service healthy and vibrant would achieve a well and balanced adjustment to the challenges of retirement life. However, it is worrisome that many of them play games as retirement approaches.
In Nsukka Education Zone, it is observed that there is large number of retirees and majority of these teacher retirees look so devastated and aged shortly after retirement from the service. On the other hand, some do not look healthy enough as to engage in other businesses to support life, while some cease to communicate freely with neighbours and withdraw completely from attending social activities. Worse still, many suffer high blood pressure, stroke or other related diseases and die shortly after their retirement to the extent that people around begin to wonder what their problem might be.
It is pertinent to note that age and records falsification by primary school teachers and their attendant effects are not restricted to only male teachers or to the females. Both sides participate freely in this act while there is no parity in their psychological and economic adjustments. This study will also look at gender differences of teachers’ age falsification and psychological adjustment. Gender is a range of characteristic used to distinguish between male and female, particularly in the cases of men and women, masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Gender is a social construct, it is not biologically determined but a concept equivalent to race or class (Offorma, 2004). This definition suggests that gender is socially or culturally constructed characteristics and role, which are associated with males and females in society. It is different from sex which is a biological distinction in appearance (morphology) and function (physiology) as well as reproductive contributions of men and women. According to Lee (2001) gender is ascribed attribute that differentiates feminine from masculine.
It is on this backdrop that the researcher developed the interest to investigate the influence of age falsification on adjustment of teacher retirees in Nsukka Education Zone.
Statement of the Problem
Presently, the average civil servant, including teachers depend on their monthly salaries to cater for their basic needs and that of their families in and after service. What is worrisome at present is that while workers in some of the well organized private sectors of the economy perceive retirement as something good and look forward to the day they would retire, those in the public sector – teachers – dread retirement and seem to embark on age falsification with no regard to typical biological changes that catch up with normal process of ageing. It appears that the sole aim of their action is to prolong their stay in service. The result seems to be that many of them expire in classroom by staying beyond the age limit of 60 years. This singular action of teachers creates a monumental difficulty in planning for proper and adequate adjustment measures.
The problem of this study has to do with some negative behaviours of teacher retirees like anxiety devastation, loneliness, withdrawal from social activities, regular health problems, to sudden death. Hence, because of these problems, there is need to investigate the influence of age falsification on adjustment of teacher retirees.
Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of age falsification on adjustment of teacher retirees in Nsukka Education Zone. Specifically, the study seeks to:
- Identify the extent to which age falsification affects psychological adjustment of male and female teacher retirees in Nsukka Education Zone.
- Examine the extent to which age falsification affects social adjustment of male and female teacher retirees in Nsukka Education Zone.
- Examine the extent to which age falsification affects economic adjustment of male and female teacher retirees in Nsukka Education Zone.
- Examine the extent to which age falsification affects health adjustment of male and female teacher retirees in Nsukka Education Zone.
Significance of the Study
The study has both theoretical and practical significance. The findings of this study will be significant in various ways. It will help in providing empirical information in investigating and explaining age falsification among primary school teachers. Theoretically, this study is anchored on the disengagement theory which is one of the earliest theories on retirement and adjustment. The theorists do not look at retirees in a positive way, rather they see them as unfortunate set of people. As a result, teachers with this view do not make proper pre-retirement preparations and the fear induces them to falsify their records of service including their age to avert retirement.
Practically, this study will be beneficial to a number of individuals among who are serving teachers, retired teachers, government, sociologists, counselors and non-governmental organizations.
The findings of this study will enable the serving teachers understand the effect of age falsification on adjustment of retirees. The insight will make them avoid fraudulent changes of their ages and service records. This will be achieved through pre-retirement counseling.
To the retired teachers, the result of the findings of this study will enable them to be concretized about their retirement problems and make proper adjustments. The findings should be presented to them via post-retirement seminars and workshops.
