Professional Commitment: An Essential Link between the Curriculum and Educational System to Enhance Performance

INTRODUCTION

Teachers are like a burning lamp having burning oil for lighting the mind and hearts of pupil (Kumar & Dhandhi, 2012). Teacher carries the responsibility on his shoulder to contribute towards quality education at every level of education to prepare the best mind and good citizen for our country. Education is the knowledge of putting one's potentials to maximum use. The report of education commission (1964-66) says ―education could be made a powerful instrument of social, economic and cultural transformation and that quality education is necessary for national survival has been realized by everyone and there is no one in the field of education to whom the message has not reached‖ (Kothari, 1966) As the sea of knowledge is expanding and unrivaled changes of information , knowledge and action shown in all the walks of the life, the part of teacher become significant in equipping students with necessary armour to protect them from its bad impact and needs to take a positive direction. It can only be possible if teacher uphold a higher level of academic and professional know-how in this rapidly changing scenario due to continued rapid expansion in the field of education throughout the country which has resulted in dilution of the quality and standard in education moreover, the sociological and technological developments make it imperative that there must be corresponding qualitative improvement along with the quantitative expansion at all levels of education which is not only desirable but also inevitable (Chahar, 2004). It is very well known that developed nations of the world are conducting experiments and formulating new theories and principles for making education more effective. Teachers can face these changes firmly so The NCERT organizes various professional development programmes for teachers and conducting seminars, workshops and research projects for teachers. Despite all these efforts, there has not been any substantial improvement in this field. In order to fulfil complex responsibilities in his or her life as a teacher, it‘s imperative and important that a teacher must

and committed enough to perform the duties of good teachers.

A teacher is the heart and soul of every educational institution and occupies the remarkable place in all educational years of students. whose scholastic distinction, mastery over the subject, values he holds and commitment to profession keeps inspiring hundreds of students day in and day out; setting a role model for the student‗s community. Many reports published on teachers performance by different national and international agencies pointed out that the teaching crisis is at its peak in the Indian education system. Teachers lack in their dedications towards the profession can be due to numerous causes like lack of knowledge of subject matter, lack of skills or commitment to their profession and students. It is a dire need of today that teacher should be a committed teacher then only he will be able to give equal chance and importance to all students to ensure optimum level of achievement and do well to the society and nation. A wide difference is found in the learning outcomes of the students of government and private schools and also in rural and urban area school students. Teachers placed in government schools are of high qualification and reach this position after clearing many tests, interview and obstacles even when the academic performance of most government school found very low in comparison to private schools. So researcher decides to inspect the level and difference in the professional commitment of teachers of government and private school.

Srivastava (1986) conducted a study for finding criteria of primary school teachers to have job satisfaction and professional commitment of primary school teachers. results revealed Female primary school teachers compared to their male counterpart had higher job satisfaction. Female teachers were professionally committed more than male teachers of primary schools. Hung and Liu (1999) conducted a study on the effects of stay back of teachers on professional commitment. The study was conducted on 493 teachers teaching in a teachers college in Taiwan in1999. Stay-back is the factors which are most highly related to commitment. The other factors like marital status, age and tenure were also found to be significantly related to commitment. Maheshwari (2002) attempted to study professional commitment of secondary teachers. The objective of the study as a to ascertain the extent, variation and distribution of professional commitment between teachers of secondary education at to compare the degree of professional commitment of teachers with their social and academic characteristics like sex, age, Academic

Kumar (2008) studied Relationship between professional commitment of college teachers and their job satisfaction in context of their biographical factors and following subgroups of teachers have been found to be the most homogeneous on professional commitment: male teachers, teachers coming from rural community background, teachers belonging to natural sciences, having teaching experience up to 15 years. Sood and Anand (2010) studied the level of professional commitment of teacher educators serving in secondary teacher training institutions of Himachal Pradesh. Results showed that the level of professional commitment of B. Ed. teacher educators in Himachal Pradesh is moderate. Significant differences were found in the professional commitment of B. Ed. teacher educators with regard to gender, marital status and teaching experience. Arjunan and Balamurugan (2013) studied professional commitment of teachers working in a tribal area school. The finding of the study was that male and female teachers working at secondary and higher secondary levels are not differing significantly at .05 level on their overall professional commitment and its five dimensions of professional commitment. Gupta and Jain (2013) studied Professional commitment among teacher educators and found that there exists no difference in the professional commitment of teacher educators with respect to locale and gender, but showed a significant difference on the basis of academic qualification. Malik and Rani (2013) studied Relationship between professional commitment and attitude towards teaching among secondary school teachers and results of the study revealed the positive and significant relationship between Professional commitment and Attitude towards teaching in case of rural and urban, government & private, male and female, and total sample. Gajjar (2014) studied professional work commitment of teacher trainee of B.Ed. College and revealed that no significant difference was found between the male and female teacher trainees and teacher trainees of Rural Area and teacher trainees of Urban Area as well as educational background of science and non-science.

professional commitment among teachers of rural and urban secondary schools yet an analysis on percentile basis indicated that rural teachers display higher commitment than teachers of urban schools. Beri and Beri (2016) explore the professional commitment among teachers educator‘s in relation to their work motivation and found that teacher educators are laying at the average/moderate level of professional commitment. Gupta and Nain (2016) conducted an exploratory study of professional commitment among teacher educators working in B.Ed. Colleges and The findings revealed a significant difference in professional commitment with its dimensions. among teacher educators working in govt./ govt. aided and self-financing B.Ed. colleges. The professional commitment with the dimensions among teacher educators belonging to science and arts streams found to be significantly different. Basir (2017) investigate the job satisfaction in relation to professional commitment of secondary school teachers and found that there exists no significant difference between male and female secondary school teachers in their professional commitment.

Descriptive Method of Research and survey technique was used to conduct the present Investigation.

Male and female teachers of all Private and government schools of una city, Himachal Pradesh are the population. For collecting the requisite data from teachers, a total of 12 schools (3 private and 9 governments) from District Una, Himachal Pradesh were selected on the basis of convenience. Afterwards, all the teacher serving in these schools were approached for data collection. Teachers were invited to volunteer for filling of the questionnaire. A selection of teachers from each school was made based on criteria of experience, gender and teaching areas following discussions with the school principal. The selection was made so that the overall sample was representative of these characteristics. Thus, a total of 127 teachers were selected. Tool used: The Professional Commitment scale (for school Teachers) was constructed by Kaur et.al, (2011) was used. It is applicable for secondary and higher secondary school teachers. The age range is from 20 to 60 years. This instrument consists of five points Likert type scale followed by Strongly Agree, Agree, Undecided, Disagree and Strongly Disagree with the respective scores/weights of 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for the positive statements and 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 for the negative statements. This scale divided into five to attain excellence v) Commitment to basic Human value. Each dimension possessing nine items. The reliability of the scale is 0.76. These items were selected after carefully scrutinizing the definition of professional commitment and its dimensions; hence scale has a fair degree of content validity. For establishing face validity, the scale was also verified to eminent psychologist and sociologists. Its language, format, instructions and size were found suitable for respondents. All the specialists were unanimous in their opinion; hence test has a fair degree of face validity.

The study is confined only to the teachers working at primary, secondary and higher secondary schools of the district, UNA, Himachal Pradesh.

The present study was conducted to find the following objectives: 1. To study the level of Teachers Professional Commitment. 2. To study the Teachers Professional Commitment with respect to the dimensions: a) To study the Teachers Professional Commitment with respect to the Commitment to the Learner b) To study the Teachers Professional Commitment with respect to the Commitment to the Society c) To study the Teachers Professional Commitment with respect to the Commitment to the Profession. d) To study the Teachers Professional Commitment with respect to the Commitment to Achieve Excellence

3. To find out whether there exists any significant mean difference in Teachers Professional Commitment with respect to the demographic variables such as: a) Gender- (Male and Female) b) The locality of the School (Urban and Rural) c) Type of School (Govt. and Private) d) Qualification (Senior secondary, Graduation, Post-graduation) e) Teaching Experience (Less than 5, 5-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, 26-30, More than 30 years) f) Age (Less than 25, 26-30, 31-35, 36-40, 41-45, 46-50, 51-55, More than 55 years) g) Teaching subject (Mathematics, Science, Social sciences, Languages, Other) h) Level of teaching (Primary, Upper Primary, Secondary, higher secondary)

The collected data from teachers were analyzed by the investigators using descriptive and differential analysis for this study. The mean and standard deviation (SD) of teachers‟ professional commitment score is 177.41 and 12.71 respectively.

In the total sample of 127, nearly 4.7 per cent of the teachers acquired below average professional commitment. The higher percentages (39.4 per cent) of the teachers acquired average level professional commitment. 37.8 per cent lie in above average commitment and rest 12.6 per cent in a high level of Professional Commitment and 5.5 per cent in the extremely high level of commitment. Therefore, by

The male and female teachers working at secondary and higher secondary levels are not differing significantly at 0.05 level of significance on their overall Professional Commitment Which is in support of the results reported by Bashir (2017), Arjunan and Balamurugan (2013), Gupta and Jain (2013), Beri and Beri (2016), Kumar (2008), Riehl and Sipple (1996), Hung & Liu (1999), Gajjar (2014) but contrary results were found in the studies conducted by Gupta and Nain (2016), Maheshwari (2002), Malik and Rani (2013), Sood and Anand(2010) and Srivastava (1986).

rural areas, therefore, Teachers working in the urban and rural area of the district. Una is not differing significantly at 0.05 level of significance on their overall Professional Commitment. These findings are supported by studies conducted by Kumar (2008), Gajjar(2014) and Sawhney(2015) but contrary results are found in the studies conducted by Malik & Rani (2013). The teachers working in the Govt. and private schools of district Una are not differing significantly at 0.05 level on their overall professional commitment. But the contrary results found in the studies conducted by Malik & Rani (2013).

BG: Between Group: WG: Within Group. S- Significant at 0.05 level. NS- Not Significant at 0.05 From the above table demographic variables like teaching subject and level of teaching with F- values 2.483 and 4.822 respectively is found to be significant at the 0.05 level of significance. While other demographical variables like qualification, age group and teaching experience of teachers with F-values 2.217, 2.447 and 1.021 respectively is not found significant at 0.05 level of significance.

significantly at 0.05 level on their overall professional commitment. These Findings are supported by Gajjar (2014) but Contrary results are reported in the studies conducted by Sharma (2008).

The teachers teaching at primary level and teachers teaching at the higher secondary level, The teachers teaching at secondary level and teachers teaching at higher secondary level differing significantly at 0.05 level on their overall professional commitment with t-values -3.718 and -2.508 respectively. These results are supported by the finding of Sharma (2008).

The present paper reported that the professional commitment level of teachers working in primary, secondary and higher secondary schools is possessing average and above average commitment. Enhancing professional commitment level of teachers is the need of the hour because only then it can give their maximum to the students and help in building a strong nation. The results indicate that Gender-wise differences, locale and type of schools contribute no difference in commitment among teachers. Among the five dimensions of teachers‘ professional commitment, ―commitment to the learner‟ is high and least level is ―Commitment to Basic Human Values‖. It shows that teacher‘s higher commitment towards the welfare of students and society. Demographic variables like teaching subject and level of teaching are found to be significant While other demographical variables like qualification, age group and teaching experience of teachers are not found significant. Among teaching subjects the mathematics and social sciences teachers, mathematics and languages teachers, social sciences and other subject‘s teachers differing significantly on their overall professional commitment. Among the level of

teaching at higher secondary level differing significantly on their overall professional commitment. Accepted ideas about teacher commitment assume that it is multidimensional. These dimensions are thought to be external to the teacher but interconnected and have some influence on each other (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Understanding the orientation of an individuals‘ commitment is crucial, as a teacher may behave differently according to those aspects of the profession and organisation to which they are committed (Nias, 1981, 1996; Tyree, 1996). Teaching is complex and demanding work and there is a daily need for teachers to fully engage in that work with not only their heads but also their hearts (Day, 2004; Elliott & Crosswell, 2001). It appears to be a professional necessity for teachers to be emotionally committed to their work, for without this emotional connection teachers face the constant danger of burn-out in an increasingly intensified work environment (Nias, 1996). At a time when education is in constant flux, teachers are expected to incorporate reforms on a number of levels into their daily practice. The reform agenda has created an environment where those who wish to survive and thrive must become involved in an ‗increased rate of personal adaptation and professional development (Day, 2000). The rapidly changing socio-cultural environment and technological explosion lead teachers to a forceful need to review their role in the learning process and preparing themselves with modern methods. Our education system is such that teachers are not encouraged to attend additional courses beyond the mandated ones. The current professional development program is lacking in skills and knowledge based approach. A critical rebuilding of these courses is without a doubt required. Beyond that teachers must be willing to experience steep learning curves and invest personal time and energy to translate the on-going reforms successfully into effective practice (Crosswell & Elliott, 2004). Professional commitment appears to be highly influential for not only a teacher‘s success during times of change but also for systems in seeking to bring about change. For these changes to incorporate, Maheshwari (2002) recommended that the professional development programmes like seminars and refresher courses could help teachers to become professionally more committed. Lack of alignment of curriculums among teacher educators, teachers and students pose a great threat for the training of our teachers and for the children‘s programs are need to be assessed from time to time. The demands in improving professional commitment of teachers in rural, urban areas are different in terms of infrastructure facilities available, social aspects, learner attitudes and skill of using technology. Beside it, also states have different educational needs, so geographical diversity existence and a challenge in different regions are need to be studied in greater detail. Last but not least there should be a known career progression for the teacher. They should be absorbed in ministries of education to help with policy implementation. In order to build a skill-set, preserve it and use it for maximum impact, progression is needed and that itself can be a very motivating journey.

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