An Assessment of Teachers’ Performance Management System: The Case of Saudi Ministry of Education

The main aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of performance management system of teachers in the Saudi Ministry of Education.The study also explores whether the performance management system provides all the information needed to reflect teachers’ efficiency and productivity. The current research aims to identify the shortcomings of the performance management system for teachers in order to determine how teaching quality may be developed and improved. This is accomplished through a self-administered questionnaire survey of teachers, designed to measure teachers’ opinions of the performance management system. A total number of teachers completed the survey was 502. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to analysis the data. The findings of the study demonstrate that teachers’ perceptions regarding their performance management system are generally oriented towards dissatisfaction. The results show that this dissatisfaction arises from the problems relating to the performance management process itself. Additionally, the performance management system for Saudi teachers does not capture the necessary information for managers to make informed decisions and policies in relation to the teachers. Moreover, many performance management system-related problems such lack of training of head teachers for conducting performance management system along with teachers’ beliefs about bias errors existing in performance management system caused teachers’ dissatisfaction. Therefore, this study has proposed recommendations to overcome the shortcomings of the existing system and to enhance teachers’ satisfaction with their performance management system.