Ultimate Aim Of Any School Education Education Essay

Human resource development is the top prioritied aspect in any developing country for the economic development and strategic survival of that nation. Even in NPE 1986 it was recognized that expenditure on education is a fruitful and desirable investment for its growth. Since illiteracy and unemployment are considered as the basic problems of these countries education at school level is one of the most important functions of the Government. Since India is one of the developing countries it is no exception for it. Great technological development intensive computerization and rapid globalization are making this problem even complicated. However great the technological development may be the success of any school education depends mostly on the school teacher. As was stated by Dr. Kothari that the future of any nation is shaped in the class room, the class room interaction between the children and the teacher which will be controlled by the teacher will decide the future of the country. Thus, the efficiency or effectiveness of the school teacher is the ultimate deciding factor for the success of any educational system, which leads to the production of potential human resource.

The ultimate aim of any school education is the total personality development of the child. The total personality development includes development of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor aspects. For this the innate and induced characteristics are to be developed through some process which we call education. Hence we believe that the process of education is nothing but providing situations to the children in which he resets his mind, heart, and body in tune with the goals.

These situations in the formal educational process can be created with the help of human resource and material resource. While teacher is the main resource, the material resource includes books, gadgets, and other teaching learning materials. With the development of science and technology along with understanding human nature the role of material resource in the process of education is increasing day by day. The programmed learning, the self learning systems and computerized systems have given way to a new system of education. The great Indian saint and educational Philosopher Swami Vivekananda says that “Man making is impossible with out human touch.” Indian philosophy also stresses the direct interaction of teacher and pupil for proper and efficient education of the child.

Thus we can not ignore the fact that teacher has a very important role in the education of the child for his total personality development .A teacher can not under take the teaching learning process in vacuums, since it is positively directed action and hence he is to be endowed with certain potentialities and skills which we call as teaching competency.

The competency or effectiveness of a teacher is a very complicated concept since it is multi dimensional. So, the measurement of this aspect depends upon the view point from which it is perceived. It can be viewed from the characteristics of teachers or the practices adopted by the teachers or the outcomes through their teaching. These three dimensions of the teacher effectiveness may be influenced by the orientation of the teachers. So there can be a strong relationship between teacher effectiveness and attitude of the teachers towards the teaching profession. The efficient working of the teachers may also depend upon the organization and management of the school. The school climate may create stress, to the teacher which may reduce the efficiency. Thus stress among the teachers also may have some influence on their teaching competency. Every individual will have some interests and aspirations. If they are fulfilled the efficiency may increase and if they are not fulfilled the efficiency may decrease. Hence Job satisfaction of a teacher may also have some influence on the competency of the teacher. Thus, to control the variable, the teaching competency the knowledge of the relationships between teaching competency and variables like attitude towards teaching, teaching stress, and job satisfaction are essential.

Teaching is one of the oldest professions in the unorganized sectors of societies. It was traditionally hereditary as in the case of religious preachers. But with the explosions of population and knowledge, the process of education has become a major sector of public undertaking in organized economics. Education was a private good in olden days. But from the early years of 20th century education is being treated as a public good. Therefore, every government in the world is raising its expenditure on education. The quality, quantity and efficiency and system of education depend upon the quality of teaching.

Teaching is an activity with four phases viz., curriculum planning phase, instruction phase, measuring phase and evaluating phase. A successful teacher may be thought of as one who is good at all these phases and derives the utmost satisfaction out of all his endeavors. It may not be perhaps wrong to say that happiness in the work may be a good indication of success in teaching. Keeping this in view the Indian Education Commission (1966) stated “intrinsic and continuous efforts are necessary to raise the economic, social and professional status of teachers and to attract talented young persons into the profession.”

Unfortunately, the teaching profession is almost the last resort for the people while they select their occupations. People in this profession thus mostly lack the essential quality needed in all kinds of work without which no real success in any direction is possible. It would not be possible for the teacher to encourage and help his pupils unless,

he has enthusiasm for his job,

he is keen on making professional progress and

he is eager to see his pupil growing not only in

knowledge but also in personality.

TEACHING COMPETENCY:

In educational research on Teaching Competency is a complex variable, difficult to define very specifically Teacher Effectiveness, teaching success, successful teaching, teaching efficiency , teaching performance and teaching ability are some of the other terms used to indicate teaching competency. In this connection, BARR (1961) aptly remarks that “As one looks through heap of investigation in this field, one finds various terms used to designate or describe the successful teacher “The words teaching competency and teacher competency are used to represent teacher behavior related and teacher related activities of teaching competency. Thus teaching competency is one of the most commonly used words in the literature of teaching ability.

Even though there is an agreement over the words used to represent teaching competency there is no much agreement over the description of teaching competency and in fact competent teaching is a relative term. The ambiguity over the description of teaching competence was hinted at by BIDDLE ( 1964 ) , The term competence is used by some researchers to refer to training process, characteristics of teachers , behaviors exhibited by teachers, and outcomes of teaching . Thus, success ability and product quality are the criteria for teaching competence.” Teaching competency is an area of research which is concerned with the relationship between the characteristics of teachers, the teaching acts, and their effects on educational outcomes of class room teaching.” ( FLANDERS AND SIMON , 1969 ).

Others also tried to describe teaching competency in terms of the activities that teachers generally perform in educational settings. For example , Ryan’s ( 1960 ) states that teaching is effective to the extent that the teacher acts in which are favorable to the development of basic skills like understanding, work habit, deserved attitudes and value judgments. though, these descriptions outline the scope and meaning of teaching efficiency they still fail to give an exact operational and measurable definition.

The complexity in defining teaching competency may be due to the vagueness in the definition of teaching. This is described aptly by ROSENSHINE and FRUST (1971 ), as ” The inadequacy of the concept of teaching and lacking empirical base has been one of the major road blocks in the way of teaching competency.”

In spite of the fact that the research in the measurement of human traits has made great progress, the appraisal of personal qualities proved effective in describing teaching competency. In this connection teaching competency has been studied in terms of three components ” presage , process, and product.” The presages component refers to the training aspect and personality factors of teachers. The process component refers to the practice in the classroom such as engaging the class , interaction with the students etc. The product component refers to the quality of the out put such as qualities of the students produced. Though these are referred as three separate components they are not mutually exclusive but possesses some common elements.

Before knowing the meaning of teacher competence, it is essential to know the meaning of competency. Competency is a term used extensively by different people in different contexts. So it is defined in different ways. Teacher education and job performance of a teacher are the contexts in which this term is used. Competencies are the requirements of a competency based teacher education, which includes knowledge, skills and values the trainee teacher, must demonstrate for successful completion of the teacher education programme (Houstan1987). A few characteristics of a competency are as follows:

A competency consists of one or more skills whose mastery would influence the attainment of the competency.

A competency has its linkage with all the three domains under which performance can be assessed. It covers the domains of knowledge, skill and attitude.

Competencies, since have a performance dimension of them, are observable and demonstrable.

Because the competencies are observable, they are also measurable. It is possible to assess a competency from the performance of a teacher. It is not necessary that all competencies of a teacher have the same extent of knowledge, skill and attitude. There may be some competencies of a teacher which have the same extent of knowledge,skill and attitude. There may be some competencies involving more of knowledge than skill and attitude, whereas, some competencies may be skill/performance loaded.

CRITERIA OF TEACHING COMPETENCY:

When we accept that teacher evaluation is a necessary and important step in the educational process, the obvious aspect on which we have to best our attention is the criteria of teaching competency what constitute effective teaching or what are the criteria of good teaching is a global issue. here in this present study, an attempt is made to re-examine the constituent nature of effective teaching in the areas of creativity and interpersonal relationships at the primary and secondary levels of teaching.

As was already mentioned , the criteria most commonly used relate to presage, process and product, Mtzel (1982 ) identified four types of research designs, each involving one of the following four types of independent variables ; pupil learning experiences, teaching performance, pupil learning outcome and teacher competence. The four different types of research are ; Type L research, type p research, Type C research and type T research .

Pupil learning outcome is the dependent variable in the type L research and the independent variables may include pupil characteristics or learning experiences. The aim of this type of research is to find out the important learner characteristics responsible for maximum learning and the types of learning experience most effective in producing the desired outcomes . The unit of study in this is the pupil.

In type P research, the dependent variable is the pupil learning experiences and the independent variables include, teacher performance and measures of internal context. The unit of study is the teacher. The primary intension of this study is to find out the methods and strategies which can produce the desired learning experiences.

In type C research, the dependent variable is a measure of teacher performance in implementation of a particular teaching strategy and the independent variables of measures of competencies in the teacher’s repertoire and the external context variables.

The unit of analysis primarily is teacher. The main purpose of this type of research is to find out the knowledge skills and values that a teacher must possesses to implement effectively a strategy or model of teaching in a given situation.

In type T research, the dependent variable is a specified competency and the independent variables or the teacher characteristics and elements in teacher training. The unit of analysis here is the pupil. The purpose of the T type research is to find out how to select and train teachers to mastery of the competency understudy.

DIMENSIONS OF TEACHING COMPETENCY:

There are many dimensions of teaching competency but four dimensions namely, personal, professional, intellectual, and social are considered as relevant in the present study. Mannerism ,Expression, punctuality and dress etc come under personal characteristics of a teacher. All these personal characteristics constitute the personal dimension of teaching competency. The personal dimension of teaching competency includes teacher ‘s interest in the subject he teachers, preparation , interest in teaching, accomplishment of teaching objectives and motivating the student, etc. The intellectual dimension of the teaching competency includes maintaining good social relations with colleagues, being sportive to student’s comments, greeting the students, finding the social relevancy of the theory he teaches, and active participation in cultural and co-curricular activities etc.

Most of the researches in the field of teaching competency confirm that the above qualities of a teacher influence teaching competency.

MEASUREMENT OF TEACHING COMPETENCY:

There are approaches in teacher evaluation

Evaluation made in terms of the qualities of the person as in Personality rating.

Evaluation of teacher behavior as in the ratings of performance in terms of Interpersonal qualities of desirable professional characteristics.

Evaluation of knowledge, skills and attitudes, etc. and

Evaluation of pupils growth and development.

STRESS :

One of the most challenging professions today is teaching and this is mainly because the teachers are in a position of too much responsibility where they are responsible for the actions of every young and unpredictable group of people of almost the same age group. Many people have not been attracted to this profession but, more and more young people continue to express their desire to join teaching. The truth is, we often do not understand how a person can decide to serve in one of the most noble careers while others do not. It all depends on the passion and drive in a person to go ahead with certain jobs. Teaching has been known to be a profession with many rewards and with this rewards comes challenges which are topped by stress. You therefore must have a vocation or a zeal to undertake teaching very effectively.

Teacher stress is categorized as a serious working hazard which has the power to bring a crisis on the teacher. Many teachers and former teachers have expressed their concerns about stress associated with the job. Many have stated that at first, new teachers are naive and are filled with optimism and go through the first months with confidence just to realize that they are being put down by students everyday. There are several factors that cause teacher stress and they include time pressures. A teacher is constantly changing classes and keeping time just to realize that they are being pressured for time. They give so much to students who might not be keen to show appreciation.

Another cause of teacher stress is their low status. One thing we can be sure of is that teachers do not teach for the money. They have therefore associated this with low status. This makes teachers look down upon themselves and some regret why they ever got into the trade. Another cause for teacher stress include pupil indiscipline. You can be sure that pupils will always find some way of making you unhappy and leave you wondering how you are going to deal with the situation. If you are the kind of teacher who is quick to anger, you have very frustrating future ahead. Feelings of dislike might be harbored inside a teacher but, the ideal thing is to come up with a solution that will enable the child to realize their problem and hopefully make them improve.

The working conditions for teachers have not been known to be great. This is another source of frustration and this problem becomes worse in the poorer countries. Another factor that will bring teachers stress is the lack of motivation in the students. It is very hard to develop motivation in pupils because they must be willing to lean. Conflicts with colleagues will cause teacher stress and the best thing is to avoid confrontation and show a better example to the pupils. Having said all these, many people in the world have taught for a very long time and continue to do so for the love of teaching.

CONCEPT OF STRESS:

Generally Stress is nothing but conflict of psychological aspects. It is very subjective experience. What may be challenge for one will be a stressor for another. It depends largely on background experiences, temperament and environmental conditions. Stress is a part of life and is generated by constantly changing situations that a person must face. The term stress Refers to an internal state, which results from frustrating or unsatisfying conditions. A certain level of stress is unavoidable. Because of its complex nature stress has been studied for many years by researchers in psychology, sociology and medicine.

DEFINING STRESS :

For explaining, stress is a very difficult matter, which is the subject of different analyses and continuous debate among experts. Beyond the details of this debate, a general consensus can be reached about a definition of stress, which is centered around the idea of a perceived imbalance in the interface between an individual, the environment and other individuals. When people are faced with demands from others or demands from the physical or psycho-social environment to which they feel unable to adequately respond, a reaction of the organism is activated to cope with the situation. The nature of this response depends upon a combination of different elements, including the extent of the demand, the personal characteristics and coping resources of the person, the constraints on the person in trying to cope and the support received from others.)

STRESS AND ITS DIMENSIONS :

Human life becomes happy and comfortable when needs are satisfied. But there are many impediments interfere with need gratification, some of those obstacles can easily be relinquished, others disturb our modes of behavior and adjustive capacities. Normally, if any thing blocks our drive towards a goal, we experience stress. In the light of the above facts, Coleman ( 1970 ) defined stress as an ” Adjustive demand placed on the organism the condition or force or object givining rise to this demand may be internal or external and is designated as the stressor ‘.

From the above definition it may be understood that stress threatens the well being of the organism. The intensity of stress depends not only on the nature of adjustive demand but also on the individuals availability of resources in copying with it. In this age of anxiety, stress is considered as an inevitable aspect of human life, forcing him to cope up with it for successful and happy life. Decomposition and maladaptive behavior results when the individuals coping behavior fails.

The main factors of creating stress in individuals are biological, psychological and socio-cultural. Biological factors influence all aspect of our behavior including our intellectual capabilities, basic temperament, primary reaction tendencies and stress tolerance. Psychological factors of stress influence the well being of the individual in contemporary life. Stress due to failure, loses, personal limitations, guilt and loneliness leads to self de-valuation. Modern livening is a bundle load of pressures acting on individuals. Each individual experiences his own unique pattern of pressures, such as competing with others , meeting educational, occupational and material demands and coping with the complexity and in rapid pace of modern life. There are other socio-cultural factors creating stress on modern man , such as problems of war and violence, group prejudice and discrimination, economic and unemployment problems , rapid social change and existential anxiety.

JOB STRESS :

In this decade of twentieth century, many people are unable to cope up with stress generated as a result of circumstances of forcing them to adopt fast paced life styles. This proposition is highly significant, when people are at work. A rational and logical inference one can make at this juncture basing on the above premises, is what working styles, may be a presupposition for work stress or job stress. So job stress has received an increasing concern to the researchers in the areas of organizational behavior and social psychology, who have been undertaking a commendable endeavor to show empirical evidences about the affects of stress on the organization , worker out put , and the physical and emotional well being of the worker.

The causes of job stress are form both out side of inside the organization, and from with himself. Fred Luthans ( 1992 ) proposed a paradigm to represent the antecedents of stress, or the so called stressors affecting to-day’s employees, and is presented in this figure.

Organizational stressors

Organization group

Individual

Job stress

Any organization is greatly influenced by external environment , so the stressors from out side the organization or extra organizational stressors have a tremendous impact on job stress.

Organizational stressors have a tremendous impact on job stress. Brief ( 1981 ) proposed some macro level organizational stressors which are presented in figure 2.

STRUCTURES

POLICIES

JOB STRESS

PHYSICAL CONDITIONS

PROCESSESS

It shows that the macro level stressors can be categorized in to organizational policies , structures, physical conditions and processes.

In any organizational set up workers work in groups. So, interpersonal relationships between the members of the group may be a categorized in to

Lack of group cohesiveness

Lack of social support

Intra individual, interpersonal and inter group conflict.

Job stress may not be always due to extra organizational and group stressors but also due to individual himself. The individual stressors are role conflict , ambiguity, individual dispositions, personal control, learned helplessness etc.

TEACHER STRESS :

The assessment of occupational stress in teachers is an increasingly important consideration in the maintenance and motivation of instructional personnel. Both the data-based phenomenon of teacher stress (Anderson, 1981; Fimian & Santoro, 1983; Maslach & Jackson, 1981) and non-data-based perspectives (Bloch, 1978; Fimian, 1980; Styles & Cavanagh, 1977; “Teacher burnout,” 1979) have been amply documented. The majority of these, however, have discussed the problem in only general terms. Also, when valid and reliable psychometric constructs were employed, they measured burnout or the end result of long-term stressful experiences. What is needed is a psychometrically valid and reliable measurement of teacher stress.

Because stress and burnout are complex issues, there are numerous factors that can contribute to teacher stress levels. Weiskopf (1980) identified a number of sources of stress: (a) work overload, (b) lack of on-the-job success, (c) longer amounts of time directly interacting with students, (d) poor student-teacher ratios, (e) poorly defined program structures, and (f) the constant responsibility for others. In a separate review, Fimian (1982) summarized 135 sources and manifestations of stress cited in the literature into one or more of 13 a priori categories. Additionally, Gallery, Eisenbach, and Holman (1981) noted four contributing factors: (a) role ambiguity, (b) role conflict, (c) role overload, and (d) lack of administrative support.

To date, numerous teacher groups have been studied from an empirical perspective: group-home staff (Fimian, 1984a; Thompson, 1980); teachers of the emotionally disabled (Lawrence & McKinnon, 1980); professionals working with the deaf (Meadow, 1981); teachers of the mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, and learning disabled (Fimian, Pierson, & McHardy, 1986; Johnson, Gold, Williams, & Fiscus, 1981; Zabel & Zabel, 1981); and general special education teacher populations (Fimian & Santoro, 1983; McIntyre, 1981). A number of regular education samples have also been studied. Schwab (1980) identified the empirical relationship among burnout and role conflict and ambiguity levels in teachers, whereas Anderson (1981) found similar results relating burnout to needs deficiency levels. Schwab (1980), Anderson (1981), and Presley (1982) each determined that background personal (e.g., sex and age) and professional (e.g., number of years teaching and caseload size) variables act as particularly poor predictors of burnout. As in the nonempirical literature, though, the majority of these investigations have focused on burnout and not on the stressful precursors of burnout.

It is also apparent in the literature that teacher stress is not attributable to a single source. It can be and often is operational zed in various empirical and nonempirical ways to account for a number of “factors” or “problems” at any given time. Maslach and Jackson (1981), for example, outlined three factors related to burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a lack of personal accomplishment related to one’s job. Pines, Aronson, and Kafry (1981) determined that “occupational tedium” was significantly related to both stress and burnout. Others, too, have attempted to define occupational stress in terms of operational zed job satisfaction, role strain, role conflict, role ambiguity, and/or teacher attitudes.

The study of teachers has long attempted to identify and isolate variables that either improve their competence and performance levels or that identify impediments that hinder increased competence. Identifying the background and organizational variables that contribute to manageable stress levels, reduce burnout, and support on-the-job performance could assist local education agencies in setting and refining long-term plans of work improvement. These plans could, with time, enhance job satisfaction, reduce role conflict and ambiguity, and improve supervisory and administrative support. How the stress-related problems are defined for teachers, therefore, is a crucial point in the process of identifying and resolving their stress-related problems. This manual proposes a means of measuring the complex construct of occupational teacher stress. Additionally, the manual will assist researchers and practitioners in their use of the Teacher Stress Inventory.

JOB SATISFACTION:

Generally the term Job Satisfaction used in organizational behavior in business management. One of the surest signs of deteriorating conditions in an organization is low Job Satisfaction according to Keith Davis (1993). Job Satisfaction is the favorableness or un-favorableness with which employees view their work as per Bruneberg. (1976). It signifies the amount of agreement between one’s expectations of the job and the rewards the job provides. Job Satisfaction is concerned with a person or a group in the organization. Job Satisfaction can be applicable more to parts of an individual’s job. If each person is highly satisfied with his job then only it will be considered as group Job Satisfaction.

“Job Satisfaction is part of life satisfaction.” says Janet and other (1978). Since job is an important part of life, Job Satisfaction influences one’s personal life satisfaction.

Job Satisfaction is related with number of employee variables such as turnover, absence, age, occupation and size of the organization in which he works. The degree of satisfaction of job largely depends on satisfaction of employee variables. According to Gorton (1976), employee’s satisfaction and morale are attitudinal variables that reflect positive or negative feelings about particular persons or situations. Satisfaction when applied to work context of teaching it seems to refer to the extent to which a teacher can meet individual, personal and professional needs as an employee. -STRAUSS, (1974).

Maslow, (1970) Herzberg (1959), Hoy and Miskel (1978), and others proposed number of theories on Job Satisfaction. According to Maslow a person’s satisfaction is determined by the fulfillment of his five levels of need. Herzberg’s motivator hygiene theory assumes that two variables determine a person’s satisfaction. 1. Internal factors like achievement, recognition etc and 2. External factors such as Salary and Interpersonal relationship. Lortie (1975) believed that teaching continues to be rather limited in its available extrinsic regards and that if teacher Job Satisfaction is to be increased efforts are to be made to improve the teaching situations. According to Edward and others (1976) a high performance leads to high Job Satisfaction, which then becomes feedback to influence future performance. Better performance leads to high rewards. This improvement in satisfaction reciprocates rewards in proportion to the performance . On the other hand , if rewards are seen as inadequate for one’s level of performance, dissatisfaction occurs.

The Indian Education Commission (1964-66) also states that “Nothing is more important than providing teacher’s best professional preparation and creating satisfactory conditions of work in which they can fully be effective.” Stapleton, Croft and Frakiewiz, (1979), found a positive relationship between Job Satisfaction and effective teacher behavior. In the light of the above theoretical frame work teacher Job Satisfaction may be considered as one of the important factors which can enhance teaching competency.

DIMENSIONS OF TEACHER JOB SATISFACTION

The researcher considers the following dimensions for measuring Job Satisfaction. They are 1. Class room teaching and student behavior 2. Professional pleasure and social status, 3. Institutional climate and working environment and social relations, 4. Salary and personal development.

Classroom teaching confines to preparation innovation, inspiration, hard work, and effective teaching, and student behavior is concerned with the impact upon the teacher caused by student’s creativity, indiscipline, activities, views, performance and observation.

Professional pleasure is related to enjoyment in the profession, love, happiness in general and happiness with high level students, in guiding and supporting the students. and social status refers to professional guidance, appreciation, assigning responsibilities, allotment of teaching work, and participation in decision making.

Institutional Climatic refers to congenial atmosphere, meager amenities, resource, freedom, interests and inspirations. Working environment is related with in-service programmers, teacher centered meetings, improvement of qualifications, professional organizations and innovative practices. Social relations refers to parent teacher associations, village education committees, society and agencies of school education.

Salary and personal development refers to relations with colleagues, parents, students, and also with higher authorities in school. And salary, place of work, advancement schemes, medical reimbursement, work load and extra activities. And to home conditions, children’s success, personal relief and energy to work.

MEASUREMENT OF TEACHER JOB SATISFACTION

Job Satisfaction measuring procedures appear to be complicated at first glance. It seems simple to go to the employees and get data from them and feel easy to interpret the given data. But the experiences reveal that careless procedural errors can limit seriously the validity and usefulness of the survey. Keen attention should be given to question construction, maintenance of anonymity for employees and sampling procedures according to Donald and Charlie’s (1975). Even in education field it is very difficult to measure the teacher Job Satisfaction.

After careful observation of the literature it is found that teachers Job Satisfaction can be measured mainly in two ways. I. Observation and interviews 2. Use of tests including inventories and working scales developed by some psychologists, and educational researchers like Cook, Marlach, Hernia and others and Gaba teacher Job Satisfaction scale, Gupta and Srivastava teacher Job Satisfaction scale, Lodahl and Kejner’s job involvement scale and Job Satisfaction scale developed by Dixit are some of the tools available for measuring Job Satisfaction. However they are context specific and may not be suitable to the present study. Hence the researcher develops a teacher Job Satisfaction self rating scale. (Given in the appendix).

TEACHER ATTITUDE:

Attitude is important to understand human behavior. To define what exactly an attitude is, many attempts have been made in literature. Generally it is defined as a complex mental state involving beliefs. Anastasi (1957)defines attitude as a tendency to react in a certain way towards a designed class of stimuli. People’s attitudes towards their profession have an effect on their performance. It is also valid for teaching profession. The quality of education is directly related to the quality of instruction. Teacher is instrumental for better instruction. He is required to have a higher professionalism because of rapidly changing circumstances. He is expected to use the best practices and strategies to meet the challenging demand of his career, which involves imparting knowledge and developing essential skills in the students. A good teacher is expected to be committed to his work and have the ability to take the initiative (sparks, 1979). Teacher is expected not only to master the subject and various methods of teaching but also to show that he is capable of selecting the various study materials according to the teaching goals and varied group of pupils. He is also possesses the potentials to create a learning environment for the students (Vermunt and Verschaffel, 2000).

Attitude of teachers largely depends upon their personal characteristics and disposition, both seems to be highly interlinked. The teaching profession requires certain dominant behaviors which show teacher’s intellect, desire to excel, extended professionalism and teaching as a life concern. This is a profession, which exalts service above the personal gains(Goodings et.al., 1995 ). Teaching involves human nurturance, connectedness, warmth and love(Hargreaves, 1994) the teacher’s beliefs about his role in caring for the students plays a crucial part in developing the personality of the students(Kelchtermans and Ballet, 2002).

Attitude of teachers have also been determined to be influenced by gender (Dodeen, et.al., 2003). They found that female teachers have more positive attitude towards teaching profession as compared to the male teachers. Flores (2001) explores from the newly graduated teachers that what affects their attitude towards teaching profession. They indicated that social and political control existing over teachers and the profession, in addition to the economic problem. She also reported that the work place also plays a crucial role in shaping teacher’s attitudes towards teaching, especially behavior of principal, and the nature of the communication within the school.

Teaching is perceived as a difficult job among the people. Many reasons can be named for this perception. It can be said that teachers face several difficulties when they start teaching. They start to feel deprived, alone and isolated in the society. It may cause a negative attitude towards the teaching profession. Attitudes of teachers play a crucial role in the teaching profession. Negative attitude of teacher may have a negative impact on one’s teaching. Smith (1993) has summarized the relationship between teacher’s attitude and teaching as:

Teachers’ Attitudes Students’ Attitude &

Towards profession Teaching Academic Achievement

Teaching is actually one of the oldest professions. It is true that the requirements for entrance into the teaching profession have not always been as high as those for some other professions. It is also that in the profession of teaching, there are some members who have not lived up to the desirable level of conduct and service. Furthermore, many persons have used teaching as a stepping stone to other professions. It is always blamed that our teachers are not discharging their duties and responsibilities adequately and satisfactorily.

The quality of education is deteriorating; it can be hardly challenge by any one. Taiwo(1980) has observed that the teaching profession had gone down on the scale of respectability. Omoregie(1994) reported that the majority of secondary school teachers does not possess positive attitude towards their profession. Studies conducted in Brazil (Garrido et. Ei., 1991) indicate that teachers show little interest and lack of compromise toward innovation in school. Barros and Elia laboratories, safety conditions etc., create new variables that (re)define the attitudes of even most devoted and well prepared teachers(http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~jossem/ICPE/D2.html).

The teaching profession has considerably suffered, as it could not attract the best talent because of the poor pay scale, limited prospects of promotion and insecurity of service, particularly in private institutions. No one can deny that the success of any system of education depends upon the quality of teachers(Govt. of Pakistan,1970). These utterances of dissatisfaction over teaching attitude in Pakistan are, in general, not based on any scientific evidence. Therefore, an effort was made to assess the attitude of secondary school teachers towards teaching profession. The destiny of Pakistan lies if its classroom. This implies that teacher, who is the organizer and the controller of the classroom is mostly responsible for the future of the Pakistan. He is building future citizens of the country. As he moulds the children so the country will be molded. From this point of view, a lot of responsibilities lie with the teacher.

Attitude towards profession means a person’s feelings, behaviors and commitment to the profession or job. If the teacher is committed and has positive attitude then it is sure that his performance will be better and his efforts will be fruitful. Richardson (1991) narrated that education is a national building activity. The quality of education depends upon ability and efficiency of teachers. If the teachers are well trained, motivated and committed with their profession, learning will be enhanced. This study may provide a searchlight towards developing a positive attitude among secondary school teachers towards teaching profession.

In a some what broader way attitude may be designated as specific or general reaction tendency which qualifies and controls the response situations. ” From a cognitive point of view ” New Comb and others ( 1969) opinion “an attitude represents an organization of balanced cognitions. From a motivational point of view an attitude represents a state of represents a state of readiness for motive arousal.” This readiness to react implies some kind of stimulating situation either specific or general.

An individual ‘s attitude towards something is his predisposition to be motivated in relation to it. So an attitude is characterized by its readiness or preparatory set towards some action but is not to be confused with motive or response itself. It is a certain stability and consistency. This does not mean , however that the attitude does not or many not change.

An attitude implies individual to object relationship. The object may be a person or place, one’s home and family members, school, teaching profession etc. An important aspect of individual object relationship that an attitude always shows some directionality. ” By direction of an attitude we mean that the residual affect felt toward an object can be either positive or negative.”

Katz ( 1960 ) has suggested following functions that attitude perform in the service of motives. Adjustment function ; attitude acquired in the service of the adjustment function are either the means for reaching the desired goal or avoiding the un desirable one . The ego defending our self image. The value expressive function; attitudes have function of giving Positive expression to his central values and to the type of person he conceives himself to be. The Knowledge function; people need standards or frames of reference for understanding their world and attitudes helps to supply such standards. These functions refers to aspects of individual’s Adaptation to environment.

An attitude is learned, and learned in relation to objects , persons and values which may or may not have motivational features. They may be formed by some traumatic or shock situations in which there is a great deal of emotion. Attitudes affect not only over behaviors but internal psychological processes as well.

ALLPORT ( 1935 ) aptly defined attitude as, ” a mental and rural state of readiness to Respond , organized through experiences exerting a directive and or dynamic influence on behavior.”

Hence, teacher’s attitude not only affects his behavior in the class room but also influence the behavior of the students. Effective and productive learning on the part of pupils can be Achieved only when teachers are endowed with positive attitude towards their profession. The Quantitative expansion and qualitative improvement of secondary education has raised problem of Selection right type of teachers. This necessitates improving teaching competency of teachers and to inculcate favorable professional attitude in teachers. The success of secondary education does not depend on designing aims and objectives but on the academic and professional preparation of teachers. For the professional preparation of teachers the study of attitudes held by them is very important. How a teacher performs his duty has a teacher is dependent on his attitudes values, and beliefs. A positive or a favorable attitude makes the teachers work not only easier but also more satisfying and professionally rewarding. A negative or un favorable attitude makes the teaching task of a teacher difficult , more tedious and unpleasant.

There is some evidence that successful teachers have desirable professional attitudes . This means that they have positive attitude towards responsibility and hard work, towards the subjects in which they specialize and place of the teacher in society.

Oliver and Butcher ( 1968 ) developed a scale to measure aspects of teacher attitude , which scores teachers on three dimensions namely, naturalism, radicalism, and tender mindedness. Student teachers interestingly tend to increase their scores on all three of these dimensions during the years of their training, and then to reduce their scores once take up their first posts. This suggest that the relatives of professional life serve to teachers generally less child centered, more conservative and more talk minded. This does not necessarily mean that teachers lose what ideal conditions. In fact they compromise to these conditions.

This ability to compromise may be important quality in successful teacher. Cortis ( 1973 ) found that those who showed most career satisfaction and seemed to be best professional progress appeared to submerge minor differences with colleagues in the interest of establishing within the school those coherent, consistent policies that enable children to feel secure and confident.

DIMENSIONS OF TEACHER ATTITUDE:

In the present study the individual is the teacher and the object is his profession. The ambit of teacher in this study is he attitudes of teachers towards six dimensions or target objects, such as : 1. Teaching profession, 2.Class room teaching, 3.Child centered practices,4. Educational process, 5. Pupils, 6.attitude towards teaching profession.

Teacher attitude towards teaching profession includes several aspects like respect to the profession, liking the profession , opting the profession etc. Aspects of class room discipline , class room climate, social atmosphere etc, are included in the dimension of class room teaching Teacher attitude towards child centered practices may be understood in terms of students freedom, student behavior, student health, availability of resources etc. The dimension of educational process , as an object of teacher attitude , may several aspects like, reward and punishment system, method of teaching, surroundings of school, student – teacher relationship etc. Further teacher attitude towards pupils may be understood in terms of student sincerity, student activities, student teacher relationship etc. Finally teacher attitude towards teachers include several aspects like qualities of teachers , teacher leadership etc.

MEASUREMENT 0F ATTITUDE:

Systematic inquiry in any subject matter is possible only when the critical variables in the area are measured with some precision. Although the concept of attitude has in one form or another been central to the field of social psychology, it is by definition a mental state. Hence, such states are not subject to any direct physical measurement. So, if one is to measure attitudes, one needs to find ways 0f operational zing , and converting to the numbers , the diverse and vague properties of attitudes. Of the many properties that have been theoretically attributed to attitudes, most researches have been concerned with measuring only to: direction and magnitude. The procedures of attitudes measurement may be in three stages.: administering, scoring and interpreting.

NEED AND IMPORTANCE OF THE TOPIC:

As was already stated that the success of any educational system depends mostly upon the teacher , improvement of the teaching competency of the teachers is an urgent need for proper development of the human resource of any country. Since teaching competency is a complex variable which depends upon the number of variables like attitude toward teaching profession, teaching stress , and teacher job satisfaction . We must find out the exact relationships between these variables. Then only we can control teaching competency. So, there is an urgent need to find out the relationships between teaching competency, attitude towards teaching, teaching stress, and teacher job satisfaction. So, that we can find the way for improving the competency of the teachers so that the effectiveness of the educational system as a whole at the school level can be improved.

At the primary and secondary level women teachers are in considerable numbers to play a vital role. Unlike in Western society Indian women have a major role at home and are exposed to greater stress in the society. Hence, a special study regarding the teaching efficiency of women teachers in relation to the above mentioned Variables namely, attitude towards teaching profession, teaching stress, and teacher job satisfaction is needed.

This is very important for the Government , the educational policy matters , administrative of the educational institutions to take proper measures to change the attitudes towards the teaching profession to reduce the stress, and improve the job satisfaction of the women teachers . So that their teaching efficiency can be considerably improved.

Women’s Education in India:

Women constitute almost half of the population in the world. But the hegemonic masculine ideology made them suffer a lot as they were denied equal opportunities in different parts of the world. The rise of feminist ideas have, however, led to the tremendous improvement of women’s condition through out the world in recent times. Access to education has been one of the most pressing demands of theses women’s rights movements. Women’s education in India has also been a major preoccupation of both the government and civil society as educated women can play a very important role the development of the country.

History of Women’s Education in India:

Although in the Vedic period women had access to education in India, they had gradually lost this right. However, in the British period there was revival of interest in women’s education in India. During this period, various socio religious movements led by eminent persons like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar emphasized on women’s education in India. Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Periyar and Baba Saheb Ambedkar were leaders of the lower castes in India who took various initiatives to make education available to the women of India. However women’s education got a fillip after the country got independence in 1947 and the government has taken various measures to provide education to all Indian women. As a result women’s literacy rate has grown over the three decades and the growth of female literacy has in fact been higher than that of male literacy rate. While in 1971 only 22% of Indian women were literate, by the end of 2001 54.16% female were literate. The growth of female literacy rate is 14.87% as compared to 11.72 % of that of male literacy rate.

Importance of Women’s Education in India:

Women’s education in India plays a very important role in the overall development of the country. It not only helps in the development of half of the human resources, but in improving the quality of life at home and outside. Educated women not only tend to promote education of their girl children, but also can provide better guidance to all their children. Moreover educated women can also help in the reduction of infant mortality rate and growth of the population.

Obstacles: Gender discrimination still persists in India and lot more needs to be done in the field of women’s education in India. The gap in the male-female literacy rate is just a simple indicator. While the male literary rate is more than 75% according to the 2001 census,thefemale literacy is just 54.16%. prejudices, low enrollment of girl child in the schools, engagements of girl children in domestic works and high drop out rate are major obstacles in the path of making all Indian women educated.

Status of Women Education in India :

Women constitute almost half of the total human resources (population) of India. Unfortunately, denial of equal socio-economic opportunities and strong traditional bias against women have resulted in low human development indices over the years, as India, like many other developing nations, has lagged behind in upgrading the status of half of its women, in many respects. Education is universally accepted as a fundamental agent of socio-economic upliftment but women have not been fairly treated as far as access to education is concerned. It is needless to emphasise that education for women is synonymous to health, information, confidence, dignity, empowerment and independence. Conversely, illiteracy leads to their exploitation in all walks of life. Despite the fact that women’s education in India has been a major area of concern for both the government and civil society and some statistics have changed since independence, many ground realities have not. Gender bias against women and hence, gender gaps still persist in almost all aspects of women education and we are far behind a condition where ‘educating women’ is no longer a news.

Problems: Primary education is the base from where secondary and higher education systems draw their resources. Unfortunately, primary education in India is ridden with numerous problems which get aggravated with strong gender bias and disparities. In a patriarchal society like ours, educating a girl child has always been a financial liability, especially in rural areas, as the girl child is perceived as belonging to her in-laws. Therefore, investing in a girl is thought to be a wasteful expenditure, whereas boys, due to their employability, are considered to be useful products of the society. Major problems of primary education of women are as follows:

Access to All: Whatever said and done, uneven achievements in education against the backdrop of Education for All continue to haunt our system. The rising literacy rates have been accompanied by skewed achievements in favour of men, urban residents, upper castes, serving middle class and the elites across various States. The gender gap becomes more defined with spatial and caste-class factors. Therefore, a scheduled caste girl of a rural area is more deprived than her urban upper caste counterpart, although even the latter may lag behind her male counterpart in the same region. Hence, inequity in terms of access to education is the biggest problem as well as a challenge we face.

A major problem of rural education is the continuous deterioration in the quality of instruction in primary schools and its irrelevance of life (Ram, 2005) and this applies to both boys and girls. So, no matter how many schools get added up, the actual quality of teaching they receive is awfully inadequate to acquire the basic literacy and numeric skills. The problem persists across gender lines, but its potential impacts on women education would be severe as it means even the girls who attend school are deprived of quality education and remain barely literate. According to a study (Bajpai and Goyal, 2004), this seems to be true of both the educationally more advanced States as well as the educationally backward ones. Even in states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu whose literacy rates were above national average of 64.84% (76.88% and 73.45% respectively) there are many instances where dismal low proportions of children who complete all grades of primary school have functional literacy. Similar results were reported by other surveys of four northern states where few children could read their fundamental texts fluently. The emphasis was on rote learning and there was little attempt to impart understanding or comprehension of the text.

Low attendance of the enrolled students and high percentage of drop-outs is another problem as enrolment is meaningless if retention rates do no not match them (Bajpai and Goyal, 2004). The problem gets aggravated in rural areas. Fewer girls attend school in the rural areas compared to their urban counterparts, and also compared to boys in the rural areas. Full time attendance is a practical problem that hinders universalizing primary education (Ram, 2004). Part of the problem is due to physical access of schools within one kilometer of their place of residence. Though the number of primary schools in the country has increased substantially, many places still do not fulfill the requirement of having a primary school within a distance of one kilometer. And, even in places where primary school is within reach, it lacks basic facilities like sufficient classrooms, running water and toilets (Bajpai and Goyal, 2004). Lack of basic facilities act as big deterrent especially for female education and are not helpful to create a learning environment, resulting in poor attendance and low quality. The number of teachers too has not increased in that proportion. Teacher-pupil ratios are inadequate. The motivation and incentive to learn is lacking due to long distances.

Poor attendance is also because many girls come from poor families. There seems to be a direct relationship between the family income and expenses toward girls’ education (Banerjee, 2007). Though primary and secondary enrolment has increased in many regions, India witnesses an alarming statistics of children who have never enrolled, mainly due to negligence or poverty on the part of their parents. The girls from poor economic background either do not get enrolled or do not attend schools, preferring to help their parents in domestic work or look after siblings. In such cases, fake attendance is a convenient arrangement for students, parents, teachers and even local education offices which boast of statistically demonstrable progress of education (Ram, 2004). Teacher apathy and teacher absenteeism are common problems in rural areas, as majority of teacher are strangers to villages where schools are located and therefore, are unwilling to travel long distances on daily basis for work. It is often difficult for an outsider to establish rapport with the local community because of dialect and other cultural barriers.

High drop out rates for girls is a persistent problem disturbing the authorities. Girls often discontinue their schooling to help in domestic chores or looking after siblings in rural areas. The drop out rates of the girls increase as they reach adolescence, especially if the schools are co-educational or they do not have a proper toilet facility. Even girls who attend school at the initial stages may have to drop out as they could be malnourished leading long stretch of sickness and absenteeism from school (Banerjee, 2007). Early marriage and frequent child birth are other associated reasons for girls discontinuing their education. The accepted notion is that a son’s education is urgent for a job, whereas a girl destiny is to get married and be bound to stereotype domesticated roles and functions (Chandana, 1992). A high drop out rate may also be explained by the scarcity of female teachers, especially in rural areas. This is because, as girls reach adolescence, parents feel more insecure if their daughters are not taught by a female teacher.

Remedies:

The government has adopted some strategies for increasing female literacy in the country like

•· National Literacy Mission for eradicating adult illiteracy and imparting functional literacy to women illiterates,

•· Universalisation of Elementary Education,

•· Non-Formal Education.

Besides these, there are many programmes especially targeting women education:

•· the integrated Child Development programme, Inclusive Education to address the special needs of the girls from disabled, ethnic minorities and underprivileged segments,

•· the Mahila Samkhya and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA),

•· District Primary education Programme, Extension Education to provide job related knowledge, Shiksha Karmi scheme in the extremely low literacy blocks,

•· Saraswati Yojana to run courtyard schools in homes,

•· Lok Jumbish project to set up Women education Centres and Women Teachers’ Forum,

•· Mid-Day Meals Scheme to boost lower secondary and Universalization of primary education by impacting upon attendance, retention and nutritional needs of children. ,

•· In 2001, the National Policy on Empowerment of Women was adopted to empower women as agents of socio-economic change.