Professional Development of Teacher Educators in Relation to Job Satisfaction

INTRODUCTION

The current era is a challenging time for education system all over the world. At the advent of the new millennium several societies engage in promising and serious educational reforms. One of the key elements in these reforms is the professional development of teachers. The capacity and willingness for lifelong learning expected from our students, must also be reflected in our teachers. A teacher should continuously learn for advancement of quality of our education system and of students‘ learning. The professional and academic standards of a teacher comprise a crucial component of necessary conditions of learning to achieve educational goals. The academic preparation, subject matter knowledge, repertoire of pedagogical skills that a teacher possesses to meet the needs of varied learning situations, the degree of professional commitment, sensitivity to contemporary problems and issues of learners critically influences the quality of curriculum transaction, pupil learning and thereby influences larger processes of social transformation. In order to keep up with the change, teachers must be continuing learners and must be seen as learning professionals. Professional development is the vehicle for improving the education of teachers. Professional development is an ongoing systematic growth process for all individuals in the school enterprise. It is designed to improve teaching performance for the benefit of students. Professional development is not just an event but is a process and professional development plans and experiences should be related directly to student performance standards and must be continuous. There has recently been a significant increase in the level of interest and support that teachers all over the world are receiving in context to professional development. According to Woods (1994) Professional development has to be considered within a framework of social, economic and political trends and events. Glatthorn (1995) explained teacher development as the professional growth that a teacher achieves through increased experience and by examining teaching systematically. Day (1999) emphasised that professional development comprises of natural learning experiences as well as conscious and planned activities that intend to directly or indirectly be beneficial to the individual, group and the school, thus contributing to the quality of teaching and learning. It is the process by which teachers review and extend their commitment in the role as agents of change to serve the moral objective of teaching; and critically develop skills, knowledge and emotional intelligence required for progressive professional thinking, and practice with children, youngsters, students and colleagues throughout all the phases of teaching careers. Professional development includes formal experiences (like mentoring, attending workshops, and professional meetings) and informal experiences (including reading

development is essentially a planned and a lifelong process in which teachers try to develop personal and professional qualities, improve their skills, knowledge and practice thus, leading to empowerment of teachers, improvement and development of the organisations and their students. Donaldson (2011) viewed that teachers should have access to relevant high quality continuous professional development for their subject and specialist responsibilities. A teacher who is inspired and competent is the one of the important school-related factors that influence student achievement, so it is critical that attention is paid to training and support of new and experienced educators. CPD of teachers has become a major policy priority within education systems worldwide. Highlighting the importance of CPD, a report from OECD (2009) observes that we may provide quality pre-service training to teachers but it cannot be expected that it will prepare teachers to deal with all the challenges that they may face throughout their careers. Education systems therefore seek to provide opportunities that facilitate teachers in-service professional development and help them maintain and enhance standard of teaching and also retain a high-quality teaching workforce. Echoing the same sentiments, Donaldson Review of Teacher Education in Scotland suggests, ―Teachers should have access to relevant high quality CPD for their subject and other specialist responsibilities‖ (Donaldson 2011). A further review of policy documents and literature reveals that a new concept of Career-long Professional Learning (CLPL) that builds on current strengths of CPD and sees teachers as professionals taking responsibility for their own learning and development is also emerging in many countries. As summary, CPD of teachers is considered as an ongoing process of education, training, learning and support activities that take place in external or work-based settings engaged by qualified educational professionals aiming largely at promotion of learning and developing professional knowledge, values and skills, to help in identifying and implementing valued changes in teaching and learning behaviour of professionals so that they educate students more effectively, thus achieving a balance between individual, school and nation‘s needs (Earley and Bubb, 2004). It is important for teachers to take up ongoing and regular learning opportunities. Ongoing professional development updates teachers with new research on children learning, new technological tools for teaching and learning and emerging curriculum resources. The best professional development is continuous, experiential, collaborative and is connected to engaging with students and developing an understanding of their cultures (Edutopia, 2008). classroom situations under the supervision of experienced mentors. Like professionals in medicine, law and architecture are given opportunities to learn by examining case studies, learning through best practices, participating in internship programs; exemplary teacher-training programs also give time to teacher candidates to apply theoretical learning in context of teaching in real classroom contexts. The intent and capacity for continuous an lifelong learning expected from student teachers also needs to be reflected in teacher educators. Teacher educators should be continuous learners to advance quality of education system and quality of pupil teachers' learning. Teacher educators‘ continuing professional development is crucial for preparing citizens of tomorrow because teacher‘s competencies, sensitivity and motivation determines the quality and extent of a learner‘s achievement. Teacher educators are required to acquire new skills and knowledge and also develop these continuously. Education and professional development of teacher educators need to be structured and resourced as a lifelong task. Meijer et al (2017) conducted a study ―Professional development of teacher- educators towards transformative learning‖ to explore the peculiar characteristics of professional development interventions for teacher educators that stimulate inquiry- based student attitudes and enhance transformative learning. The study was carried out in different educational settings and 20 educators participated during nine months. Data sources comprised videos, interviews, questionnaires and recorded personal theories of practice. The analysis suggested that self-study aligned interventions on personal, peer as well as group level that are guided by a trained facilitator support intended learning. Research on teacher educators emerged in the late nineties, and is currently focussed on professional development of teacher educators, identity building and their professional roles. The attention for work of teacher educators is noticeable from policy perspectives. Some countries have developed standards and frameworks for teacher educators that represent an ideal image of competencies that teacher educators must possess to function effectively. In research as well as in policy literature, authors have agreed that teacher education is a unique profession by highlighting that teacher educators are ―teachers of teachers‖ (Murray, Swennen, & Shagrir, 2008). Professional development is a process that is long term, begins with initial preparation, and ends only when a teacher retires from his/her profession and is therefore broader than a job. The process of exercises its effect on the educational system as a whole. If the teacher is contended with his or her job he may contribute to the educational system in a better way and vice versa. For the qualitative improvement of education, there is a need of satisfied teachers with no job dissatisfaction and unrest, tension and frustration and to motivate teachers who work wholeheartedly for development of society and of the educational process. Job satisfaction has been referred to as the extent or degree to which employees have a positive and affective orientation towards his/her employment by the organization (Price, 1977). Job satisfaction may be a favorable or unfavorable subjective feeling that employees have towards their work. This is a result of congruence between job recruitment, demands and expectations of the employees. Professions of higher degree demand development of requisite attitudes, skills and values for successful learning and teaching experience that is characterized by relevance, practicability and acceptability (Mehra and Kaur, 2011) Job Satisfaction is a primary requirement for successful teaching - learning process. Job satisfaction refers to a complex phenomenon that involves various personal, social and institutional aspects. Bashir (2017) in his research on Job satisfaction of teachers in relation to professional commitment indicated that there exists a significant difference between male and female teachers of secondary schools in their job satisfaction. It was also found that there is no significant difference in the professional commitment of male and female teachers of secondary schools. Results also showed positive significant relationship between professional commitment and job satisfaction. This proves job satisfaction and professional commitment to be significantly related to each other. If the teachers get adequately satisfied with their jobs, they will be able to fulfil educational objectives as well as national goals (Agarwal, 2012). The present research, therefore, is undertaken to find out the relationship of professional development of teacher educators with job satisfaction.

Is there any significant relationship between professional development and job satisfaction of teacher educators?

A sample of 120 teacher educators from colleges of education with 50 teacher educators working in education of Punjab state.

Data was collected with the help of teachers professional development scale by Bhutia (2014) and Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS)by Singh and Sharma (1999).

As the present study is intended to find out the relationship between professional development and job satisfaction of senior secondary school teachers, Pearson‘s Product Moment correlation technique was employed.

• The coefficient of correlation between professional development and job satisfaction of total sample of teacher educators is 0.41 that is positive and also significant at .01 level of confidence which shows that there exists a significant positive relationship between professional development and job satisfaction of teacher educators of Punjab state. • The coefficient of correlation between professional development and job satisfaction of teacher educators working in government and government aided colleges is 0.60 that is positive and significant at .01 level of confidence which shows that there exists a significant positive relationship between professional development and job satisfaction of teacher educators who work in government and government-aided colleges. • The coefficient of correlation between professional development and job

shows that there exists a significant positive relationship between professional development and job satisfaction of teacher educators working in private colleges

A significant positive relationship was found between professional development and job satisfaction of teacher educators working in government as well as private sectors. It leads to the conclusion that teacher educators who have higher sense of job satisfaction are professionally more developed whereas the teacher educators with lower sense of job satisfaction are professionally less developed irrespective of their type of institution. The results were in line with previous study done by Chen et. al., 2004; Bosley, 2004; Bloger, 2008. If the teacher is contended with his or her job he may continue in a better way to educational system and vice versa. For the qualitative improvement of education, there is a need of satisfied teachers with no job dissatisfaction and unrest, tension and frustration who can work wholeheartedly for development of the society and of the educational process. Job satisfaction predicts actual career development confidence and is an important factor in teachers‘ Professional development.

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Associate Professor, Partap College of Education, Punjab