The study explores primary school teachers’ views on professional development and retention in the context of history and social studies education in Ekiti State. The research focuses on understanding teachers’ perceptions of professional growth opportunities, factors influencing their job satisfaction, and strategies for primary teacher retention. The research design adopted was the multistage research design.
The opinion of ninety-six (96) primary school teachers was sought using an opinion questionnaire developed by the author and validated by ten teachers. The questionnaire consisted of sixty-five (65) items on training experiences needed in promoting and sustaining professional development and retention of teachers in the primary school system. Simple proportional percentages and descriptive statistics were the major statistical tools used for the study. Findings show that teachers at the primary school level hold both similar and divergent views. The findings aim to inform decision-makers and stakeholders on effective approaches to enhance teacher development and retention. It also suggests that such views should be closely looked into and that various forms of professional development such as in-service training and vacation courses and sandwich programmes should be encouraged in order to enhance the job performance of primary school teachers, ultimately improving the quality of history and social studies education in primary schools. The findings further show that primary school teachers are of the opinion that those who benefited from such programmes should be retained in a particular mean with a score of 3.63