Studies Related to Attitude of Teachers towards Teaching Profession

Education helps cushion high rate of literacy effect, emancipate the masses from the shackle of ignorance, equipping them with cognitive skills to induce development and make them aware politically economically, socially and enable them produce and develop teaming human resources, producing caliber of personnel imbued with skills for productivity- Ogunna cited in Okemakido (2013). Education is a lifelong process. In this process of education, the teacher plays an important role. Without teacher the process of education is ineffective. He is the heart of the matter of this process. Education takes place through the interaction between the teacher and the taught. A teacher is the most important element in the teaching-learning process. It is said that no system of education is better than its teacher, because the quality of education depends upon the teacher who serve it. [12]. A good teacher can certainly give best result out of the worst system [11]. The teacher occupies a pivotal position in the system of education. The teacher is the backbone of the educational system, maker of the mankind and architect of the nation. Anikweze, Ojo and Mayanya [1] assert that teachers should be the carrier of the culture of the society, the agent for its propagation, perpetuation and renewal, as well as the architect for its change for the better. Considering the above, a person who performs this role should be counted first before others in the society without him the society may remain in the dark. Teacher‟s function should not be confined in the classroom teaching only rather he should be the role model before the students in all activities in and around the school. Teaching profession is a noble profession. The University Education Commission (1948) emphasized the importance of the teacher and his responsibility. The aim of education is the all-round development of child‟s personality. This need of education can be realized only when the teaching profession is effective. Effective teaching is the development of total attitude towards teaching profession. The attitude can be effective when the teacher is able to motivate the learners to learn in desired direction. When it has universally acknowledged that a teacher is the pivot in any educational system and professional efficiency of teacher depends to a considerable extent upon attitude which he bears towards the profession. Kothari Commission (1964-66) has aptly observed that “the future of the nation is shaped in her class room”. The teacher has a powerful and abiding influence in the formation of the character of every future citizen. He acts as a pivot for the transmission of intellectual, technical skills and being. National Policy of Education [17] has rightly stated that, “The status of the teacher reflects the socio-cultural ethos of a society, it is said that no people can rise above the level of its teacher”. NCTE [7] in Quality Concerns in Secondary Teacher Education, - “The teacher is the most important element in any educational program. It is the teacher who is mainly responsible for implementation of the educational process at any stage”. The American Commission on Teacher Education rightly observes, “The quality of a nation depends upon the quality of its citizens. The quality of its citizens depends not exclusively, but in critical measure upon the quality of their education, the quality of their education depends more than upon any single factor, upon the quality of their teacher.” The religious leaders, social reformers and educationists are also given much more importance to teacher in different periods. Tagore says that “a lamp can never light another lamp, unless it continues to burn its own flame. A teacher can never truly teach unless he himself continues to learn”. Therefore teacher has to adopt improve ways of teaching and learning. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan says that “the teacher‟s place in society is of vital importance. He acts as the pivot for the transmission of intellectual traditions and technical skills from generation to generation, and helps to keep the lamp of civilization burning. He not only guides the individual, but also, so to say the destiny of the nation”. Teaching is a profession-indeed a noble one, conceptually and ideally. It is also different from other professions because of its multitude of dimensions. Teachers are the largest professional group engaged in human development activities. It is only in the case of teaching there is much more that is required to be accomplished than in the case of other professions. Training of the practitioners is considered to be one of the important characteristics of a profession. Therefore, in order to befit the teachers to their roles, a sound professional training is needed. Induction training and continuous education thereafter equips the teachers with adequate knowledge and skills to perform their professional functions. Hence, the training of the teachers assumes special importance. Professional training of a teacher implies his mastery in knowledge of the subject, in pedagogy and teaching techniques.

Raina (1981) conducted a factorial study of the personalities, attitudes towards teaching and creativity of in-service teachers and student teachers belonging to three subject areas. It was found that the in-service and the pre-service teachers differed significantly in their attitude towards teaching when taken as a whole. There were no significant differences in the attitude of teaching between the in-service commerce teachers. However, the pre-service science, arts and commerce Singh (1981) carried out a study to determine the relationship between teachers' attitude towards teaching and their classroom behaviour. The results showed that the correlation coefficient between the two variables were not significant. This showed that teachers' attitude towards teaching and their teaching behaviour was not correlated. Ghosh (1982) conducted a study to identify if any relationship existed between the scores to Teacher Attitude Inventory (TAI) and trainees' performance in their practical teaching and theory examination. The results showed that the pupils with high attitude did not get high scores in practice teaching. The relationship between attitude scores and achievement in theoretical subject was found to be significant. Patel (1983) compared the prospective and in-service teachers with respect to the six aspects of teacher's professional attitude (i) teaching profession, (ii) class room teaching, (iii) child-centred practices, (iv) educational process, (v) pupils and (vi) teachers. The major findings were: (i) Prospective teachers had a more favourable attitude towards the teaching profession, child centred practices and possessed less favourable attitude towards the pupils in and outside class room, and (ii) They had a more positive attitude towards student teachers of their own college than the inservice teachers had towards their permanent colleagues. Som (1984) undertook a study on teachers' personality patterns and their attitudes towards teaching and related areas. The sample consisted of 75 in-service male teachers, 65 in-service female teachers. The major findings were: (i) Female teachers tended to be higher than males in their attitude towards teaching, the teaching profession and pupils, (ii) Teaching attitude as well as the attitude towards profession correlated significantly with patience, initiative, stoicism, carefulness, extrospection, and responsibility, (iii) Extroversion had no significant association with the attitudes but it was moderately negatively correlated with the teacher attitudes other than that towards classroom teaching. Further, introverts tended to have favourable attitude towards pupils. Tripathi (1987) in his study tried to find out the relationship between Teacher attitude and organizational climate. The sample of the study constituted 840 teachers, ten each from all the eighty-four intermediate Colleges in Varanasi districts. He concluded that on professional attitudes, the mean differences between teachers of rural and urban colleges, government and private colleges and girls' and boys' colleges were not significant. Khatoon (1988) empirically tested the relationship between teacher classroom behaviour, attitudes, work values and pupil control ideology. The study revealed

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NEED AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY:

Teachers who are generally unenthusiastic about the teaching profession (i.e. having a negative job orientation) reported in one study, that they were more distressed about their teaching situation than were teachers who were enthusiastic. Thus, for the professional growth of the teachers and improvements in education, the attitudes held by them are very important. How a teacher performs his/her duty as a teacher is dependent, to a great extent, on his/her attitudes, values and beliefs. A positive favourable attitude makes the work not only easier but also more satisfying and professionally rewarding. A negative and unfavorable attitude makes the teaching task harder, tedious and unpleasant. In addition, a teacher‟s attitude also influences the behaviour of her / his students. Thus effective and productive learning on the part of students can be achieved only by teachers with desirable attitudes. Thus, teacher‟s attitude towards teaching profession forms the major variable for the present study on College teachers. The study is significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, a deeper understanding of teachers‟ attitudes towards teaching profession in the content area will be gained. Secondly, the results from this study can help the Government as well as the different department of Colleges to develop positive attitudes in teachers towards teaching profession. Finally, the information gained from this study can benefit to the new comers in this profession. Importance of the study of teacher‟s attitude towards teaching profession is generated in the mind of investigator to study the influence between moderator variables. From the psychological point of view the teachers' attitude is most influential in teaching profession. Attitudes are generally the outcome of values and more implied in the environment surrounding the young mind. Colleges should build up a good environment where favourable teacher‟s attitude towards teaching profession may find healthy sustenance. Hence there a great need for a study of teachers attitude towards teaching profession in College level in relation to gender and locality. Therefore, the researcher feels that particularly the College teacher‟s opinions or their attitudes can never be ignored, rather those should be reviewed or re-explored time to time, it is this feeling that has urged this investigator to take up the present study on a particular region of West Bengal. It is expected that, this study, through small, will be able to make some significant contributions in the field of education. The investigation was delimited to only Cooch Behar district of West Bengal. (B) Level of Education (i) The study was restricted to the college teachers in Cooch Behar district. (ii) Among the College Teachers, only the General and Social Science teachers were considered as the subjects of the present study. (C) Type of Study This study was conducted only at surface level. It was not an „in-depth‟ study. Attempt to know the subject‟s attitude by administering an attitude scale constructed by the researchers. No inter-state comparison was done. Only intra- district comparison between the male teachers and female-teachers, between General and Social science teachers, rural and urban teachers, Permanent and Part Time teachers, teachers having teaching experience between less than 5 years and above 5 years, and bases on their caste i.e. General and SC/ST, General and OBC were done.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To ascertain the attitude of college teachers towards teaching profession in Cooch Behar District of West Bengal. 2. To find out the difference between the attitude of Male and Female college teachers towards teaching profession. 3. To find out the difference between the attitude of Rural and Urban college teachers towards teaching profession. 4. To find out the difference between the attitude of Arts and Science college teachers towards teaching profession. 5. To find out the difference between the attitude of less and above than 5 years teaching experience college teachers towards teaching profession. 6. To find out the difference between the attitude General and SC/ST College teachers towards Teaching Profession. 8. To find out the difference between the attitude of permanent and Part-time college teachers towards teaching profession.

The present study is based on survey method, particularly, the normative survey research method. 2.1. Population of the Study The College Teachers of Cooch Behar district of West Bengal comprised the population of this study. 2.2. The Sample and Sampling Procedure 70 Teachers of four Rural Colleges and 110 Teachers of five Urban Colleges teaching in Permanent (95) and Part Time (85) in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal were taken as representative sample of the whole population. Stratified random sampling technique was adopted for selecting the Colleges. At first separate lists of Rural and Urban Colleges in Cooch Behar District were prepared. From among the lists of colleges, four rural and Five Urban colleges were selected through random sampling procedure. From among the three streams –Arts, Science and Commerce, only two streams (Arts and Science) teachers were treated as the subjects of the present study. Hence, total sample of this study consisted of 180 teachers. 2.3. The Tool Used An attitude scale (Likert Type) was used for knowing the attitude of the College Teachers towards Teaching Profession. The tool was a five-point scale; that is to say, there were five scale points. Where 30 items and each of items have 5 alternative answers are present.

The major findings of this study revealed that the attitude of College teachers in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal is neither more favourable nor unfavorable towards teaching profession i.e., satisfactory or average in attitude towards teaching profession. It is found that there is significant difference between the attitude of Male and Female college teachers towards teaching profession in Cooch Behar district. It is also found that, the attitude of Female college teachers is comparatively more favorable than that of Male college teachers towards teaching profession in Cooch Behar district. It may be due to the fact that, female college teacher have realized more the importance of teaching profession for their better future. It may also seems to be that the female college finding of this study is also corroborated with other findings of the studies done by- Trivedi, Tripta (2011). Belagali, H.V. (2011), Banerjee, Srijita & Behera, S.K. (2014) They also reported that the attitude of Female teachers is more favorable than that of Male teachers towards teaching profession The major findings of this study revealed that there is significant difference between the attitude of General caste and SC / ST college teachers towards teaching profession in Cooch Behar district. It is also found that, the attitude of General Caste college teachers is reasonably more favorable than that of SC/ST college teachers towards teaching profession. It is also found that there is no significant difference between the attitude of General Caste and OBC College teachers towards teaching profession in Cooch Behar district. It is found that, the attitude of General Caste college teachers is moderately more favourable than that of OBC college teachers towards teaching profession. The last findings of this study revealed that there is no significant difference between the attitude of Permanent and Part Time College teachers towards teaching profession in Cooch Behar district. It is also found that, the attitude of Permanent college teachers is comparatively more favourable than that of the Part Time college teachers towards teaching profession.

1. This study suggests that the attitude of teachers towards teaching profession must be tested on some other variables like pay structure, teaching experience, caste etc. it is also recommended that recommended that such type of study must be investigated outside of Cooch Behar District for its rationality. This study can be conducted in other university. 2. Similar studies can be conducted by taking large sample of from other parts of the country. 3. Similar studies can be done at various levels of education in India. 4. Similar studies can be undertaken in different states of India. 5. „In-depth‟ studies may be conducted in order to know real attitude of the subject. A team-work may be required for the purpose. 6. If comparative surveys indicate unusually adverse attitude of a group of subjects towards teaching profession, causal studies may be

7. Causal studies may be undertaken to know the reasons behind unfavorable attitude.

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NCERT (1971).

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Assistant Professor in Teaching of Commerce