Teachers’ Perceptions of Professional Commitment (Affective, Continuance and Normative Commitment) to Teaching Profession

Abstract

Teachers play an important role in schools.  Their impact on the quality of students is recognised the world over. They contribute to the socio-economic development of a country. Providing quality training to teachers requires careful planning and effort. Modern changes in education have created additional challenges for teachers and these developments have made it imperative to redefine the role of teachers and teaching profession. The new trends in education and information explosion have brought significant changes in curriculum, teacher training programmes, and teaching-learning processes in the schools. Teachers are now expected to play a pivotal role in implementing these changes and preparing students for the new scenario in the education system.  This consideration has prompted this study to help the stakeholders know more about the teachers’ perceptions of the teaching profession. The study that attempted to find out the teachers’ perceptions of professional commitment to teaching profession and to identify the problems that affected the teacher professionalism with a view to suggest possible measures for obtaining the commitment of teachers to the teaching profession in Government high school for boys in district Charsadda of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The study examined and identified the teachers’ perceptions of professional commitment to teaching profession based on the following research questions. What are perceptions of teachers about their professional commitment to teaching? What has precluded the teachers to stand committed to the teaching profession? How can teachers’ commitment be obtained for teaching profession? Moreover, what suggestions can be drawn from the study for obtaining the professional commitment of teachers’ for improving the quality of education? The population of the study included 45 Government high schools for boys, their principals/ headmasters and 525 teachers. The sample of study included 23(50%) principals/ headmaster and 184(35%) teachers of Government high schools for boys located in urban and rural areas. It comprised of six urban and seventeen rural schools. The sample teachers in the urban schools were 65 and 119 in rural schools areas. The sources of data collection were opinionnaires for teachers and principals / headmasters and from document analysis. The data were treated quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative data were tabulated and converted into Frequency, Percentage (%), Mean, Standard Deviation (SD) and Rank. The important conclusions of the study were the focus of the teachers on professionalism and committed to the teaching profession. Teachers’ improved the moral values among the colleagues. Other important issues raised in this study were that teachers faced academic problems and social problems, such as poor, sick, ill-disciplined students and slow learners etc. It pointed that the role played by the teacher should be redefined. It is the responsibility of the Government and society to support teachers and provide them with necessary means.

Keywords: Teachers, professionalism, professional commitment, Affective, Continuance and Normative Commitment