Professionals without a Profession? The Paradox of Contradiction about Teaching as a Profession in Ghana

Abstract

Today almost every worker claims to be a professional and their occupation a profession. To teachers the question of professionalism is very important; it influences the quality of education they provide for children as well as the quality of their lives as teachers. Yet, how professionalism is defined and what constitute a profession have been sites of academic and ideological struggle between union leaders, bureaucrats and academics played out in a variety of settings. This paper reports on a study that investigated teachers’ conception of professionalism and profession. It examined teachers’ views of themselves as professionals and of teaching as a profession. The research adopted a descriptive survey approach. Evidence was gathered through administering questionnaire to teachers who had undergone pre-service professional training at bachelor’s degree level, taught for at least three years and were upgrading their professional qualification to master’s degree level. It was found that while teachers saw themselves as professionals, they did not think that teaching in Ghana qualified as a full-fledged profession. This apparent ‘paradox of contradiction’ is vital knowledge for understanding individual actions by teachers and their attitude to collective actions by teacher organisations such as the Ghana National Association of Teachers and the National Association of Graduate Teachers.

Keywords: profession, professional, professionalization, professionalism, teaching.