Chapter 2

Teaching is actually one of the oldest professions. It is true that the requirements for entrance
into the teaching profession have not always been as high as those for some other professions.
It is also true that in the profession of teaching, there are some members who have not lived
up to the desirable level of conduct and service. Furthermore, many persons have used
teaching as a stepping-stone to other professions. It is always blamed that our teachers are not
discharging their duties and responsibilities adequately and satisfactorily. The quality of
education is deteriorating; it can hardly be challenged by anyone.

Given the enormous responsibilities bestowed on the teacher by his calling and society, his
condition of service remains pitiable. In fact, parents and indeed the society need to be
educated to understand the realities about teacher and the teaching profession. It had never
occurred to them that this negative and low rating of teachers have a boomerang effect on the
educational system and the society at large.

Teacher Education and Training in Education is a powerful mechanism for the socio-political
and economic development of a country. To gear up education towards the desired end,
teaching profession assumes great importance. Education is like a guiding force of human
growth and development. In teaching, at its best, teacher provides pupils with experience that
will make worthwhile contribution to their mental, physical, social and emotional growth.

The teaching profession has considerably suffered, as it could not attract the best talent
because of the poor pay scale, limited prospects of promotion and insecurity of service,
particularly in private institutions. No one can deny that the success of any system of
education depends upon the quality of teachers. Therefore, an effort was made to assess the
attitude of primary school teachers towards teaching profession. The destiny of nation lies in
its classroom. This implies that teacher, who is the organizer and the controller of the
classroom is mostly responsible for the future of nation.

A teacher is required to have a higher level of professionalism because of rapidly changing

circumstances. The importance of teachers’ professional development is being too much
emphasized today.

Teaching is perceived as a difficult job among people. Many reasons can be named for this
perception. It can be said that teachers face several difficulties when they start teaching. They
start to feel deprived, alone and isolated in the society. It may cause a negative attitude
towards the teaching profession. Attitudes of teachers play a crucial role in the teaching
profession. Negative attitude of a teacher may have a negative impact on one’steaching.
The quality of education depends upon ability and efficiency of teachers. If the teachers are
well trained, motivated and committed with their profession, learning will be enhanced. This
study may provide a searchlight towards developing a positive attitude among primary school
teachers towards teaching profession.

Educational administrators worldwide have to promote the teaching profession and increase
its respect and appreciation among community members. One way of doing so is by
recruiting well-qualified and competent teachers for this profession. Along with testing their
knowledge in the subject area, they should test their attitudes towards teaching as a
profession.

Attitude is important to understand human behavior. To define what exactly an attitude is,
many attempts have been made in literature. Generally it is defined as a complex mental state
involving beliefs.

Every individual has a variety of attitudes, which might be positive or negative and can vary
according to their favourability and un–favourability for various attitudinal objects.

Attitude towards profession means a person’s feelings, behaviours and commitment to the
profession or job. If the teacher is committed and has positive attitude then it is sure that his
performance will be better and his efforts will be fruitful.

People’s attitudes towards their profession have an effect on their performance. It is also valid
for teaching profession. As well, teachers’ attitudes towards teaching play a significant role in
shaping the attitudes of students towards learning (Bichi & Musa, 2015).

The quality of education is directly related to the quality of instruction. Teacher is

instrumental for better instruction. He/She is required to have a higher professionalism
because of rapidly changing circumstances. They are expected to use the best practices and
strategies to meet the challenging demand of his career, which involves imparting knowledge
and developing essential skills in the students. A good teacher is expected to be committed to
his work and have the ability to take the initiative

Attitude of teachers largely depends upon their personal characteristics and disposition, both
seems to be highly interlinked. The teaching profession requires certain dominant behaviors
which show teacher’s intellect, desire to excel, extended professionalism and teaching as a
life concern.
For instance, an individual’s attitude towards his/her occupation may affect the end-product.
Someone who does not enjoy his/her occupation will not be able to succeed in that
occupation. A good teacher with proper attitude, behavior, and personality traits can motivate
and inspire students. However, a teacher with a positive attitude towards teaching is
considered better and becomes popular figure among students. Positive attitudes not only
promote learning but also create the climate which stimulates effective learning.

That is, the teacher’s acceptable kind of Behaviour strongly reflects his interest in his job and
proves that his attitude toward it is positive. The teacher’s aggressive behavior is sometimes
caused by his disinterest in the job he performs and then causes his negative attitude toward
the whole profession and might be toward colleagues and students.

Teachers with positive attitudes always look at this profession as respectable, noble, and
honorable no matter how their financial gains are. Teachers of positive attitudes do not often
think much of wages. The moral gains and the sense of building nations and producing
community intellectuals are of greater importance. Kaur & Gill (2017) and Phargava & Pathy
(2014) claim that having positive attitudes towards choosing teaching profession is as
necessary as developing knowledge, skills and value required in teaching.

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• The importance of investigating teachers’ attitudes towards the teaching profession is
stemmed from the fact that they are the cornerstone of the educational system and their traits
in addition to their behavioral patterns have a significant role in their decision to join the
teaching profession (Shaheen, Kashif, Daud, & Tariq, 2016). Furthermore, understanding the
kind of their attitudes is the key step to improving education quality because they have a great
influence on their students’ learning and meanwhile influence their job satisfaction
(Senthilkumaran & Muthaiah, 2017).

Besides, teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching profession not only influence their teaching
practices and the strategies by which they cope with the challenges in their daily professional
life but also influence their well-being (Agcam & Babanoglu, 2016). To put it in a different
way, recruiting teachers with negative attitudes toward the teaching profession is dangerous
because it is likely that their teaching practices will not promote a collegial and collaborative
work environment. Most of them, if not all, will be irresponsible and so they will not train
students to hold their responsibilities for their learning.

An attitude is comprised of mental, emotional, and behavioral reactions developed within the
individual according to his experience, knowledge, feeling, and motives. The attitude of any
prospective teacher is normally shaped by many factors like Parents; future in the teaching
profession; salaries; profession-esteem degree; structure and content of training programs;
changes in social, and cultural, and economic circles (Atabey, 2021). Therefore, in charge of
teacher-recruiting people have to check the attitude of teachers in light of the impact of these
factors on them before allowing them to join the profession.

Furthermore, teachers’ efficacy in teaching is always positively associated with their

attitudes, sentiments, concerns about the teaching profession, collaboration, and managing
behavior (Nagase, Tsunoda & Fujita, 2020). Stakeholders of pre-service teacher training
programs should keep informing teacher trainees about what is so-called emotional distress
that is a kind of mental suffering where a person finds himself surrounded by various
stressors, and when he discovers that the teaching profession is very socially demanding.

Moreover, understanding the prospective teacher’s reasons for the choice of the teaching
profession sheds light on his attitude towards the teaching profession. Defining all or some of
these reasons can help developing teacher preparation programs implemented at the colleges
of education. Such programs are assumed to provide students teachers with knowledge and
experience; enable them to be independent individuals, creative, take responsibility for career
choices, and most important have positive attitudes towards the profession they have chosen
(Sener, 2015).

One more important fact that ascertains the need to study the teachers’ attitudes is the fact
that teachers play a pivotal role in teaching and learning processes. Teachers who have a
negative attitude toward their profession are unable to give detailed explanations about
concepts related to the subject matter they are teaching. They also frustrate students and cause
their loss of interest in learning. In comparison, teachers who have positive attitudes usually
practice good mastery over their subject matter, command the respect of their students and
gain their attention as long as they have a sense of intimate belonging to the teaching
profession (Omolara & Adebukola, 2015). In addition, there is a relationship between
Attitudes toward teaching and professionalism in teaching. The relevance f teacher
professionalism stems from the fact that the teaching profession is an important factor
affecting the quality of education and community. Therefore, the discovery of the relationship
between teachers’ occupational professionalism and their attitudes towards the profession is
thought to be helpful for policymakers to develop regulations for teachers’ occupational
professionalism (Korkmaz & Unsal, 2020).

The attitude of teachers toward the teaching profession has always been at the center of a hot
debate because of its effect not only on the development of students’ intellect but also on the
prosperity and progress of nations. Researchers are interested in studying the attitude of pre
or in-service teachers toward the teaching profession because of the important role that
attitude plays in the teacher’s teaching performance in and outside the classroom. None
ignores that frustrated or not highly motivated teachers would practice teaching carelessly
without much attention just for the sake of salary, and so much of their performance will be
incomplete and lacks innovation.

While studying the teacher’s attitude toward the teaching profession, researchers pointed out
many factors that might affect the development of his positive or negative attitude. For
instance, some of these studies indicated that the teacher’s marital status and type of
institution influence his attitude toward the teaching profession (Rani, 2016). Another study
showed that the teacher’s gender is effective in developing positive attitudes toward teaching.
Female teachers usually have more positive attitudes than male ones (Sener, 2015).
Moreover, prospective teachers who intended to work in private sector schools had more
positive attitudes than peers who are expected to work in public sector schools (Kinyota &
Kavenuke, 2019).

While studying the teacher’s attitude toward the teaching profession, researchers pointed out
many factors that might affect the development of his positive or negative attitude. For
instance, some of these studies indicated that the teacher’s marital status and type of
institution influence his attitude toward the teaching profession (Rani, 2016). Another study
showed that the teacher’s gender is effective in developing positive attitudes toward teaching.
Female teachers usually have more positive attitudes than male ones (Sener, 2015).
Moreover, prospective teachers who intended to work in private sector schools had more
positive attitudes than peers who are expected to work in public sector schools (Kinyota &
Kavenuke, 2019).
There is also a significant positive correlation between extraversion, conscientiousness,
openness, and personality, whether agreeableness or neuroticism, and his self-efficacy belief
(Üstüner, 2017). In addition, the teacher-training program, qualification, gender, associated
institution whether public or private, place of work, and experience where noticed as
important factors affecting the teacher’s attitude toward the teaching profession (Zaidi, 2015).
Experience is another factor that plays a significant role in the teacher’s attitude toward
teaching. Attitudes of experienced teachers, i.e. in-service teachers were better than the
attitudes of inexperienced teachers, i.e. pre-service ones (Singh & Biswal, 2018).
Furthermore, conscientious personality and work experience can positively predict primary
the teachers’ attitudes towards the teaching profession (Odo, Onah, Ujoatuonu, Okafor,
Chukwu, Juliet, Nwufo, Karat & Mefoh, 2021).
On the other part, many studies concluded that many factors do not make any significant
difference in the teacher’s attitude toward the teaching profession. For example, it was
indicated that the teacher’s gender and residential background have no significant role in his
attitudes positive-negative (Rani, 2016). School graduation, gender, and academic
achievement, i.e GPA, were also of no great impact on the teacher’s attitudes toward the
teaching profession (Sener, 2015; Kinyota & Kavenuke, 2019). A teacher’s self-concept does
not enhance his attitudes toward his profession, too (Sivakumar, 2018; Sahu & Kaushik,
2020) showed that such relation does not exist.
In short, teaching is a rewarding profession and the teacher’s biggest reward is his feeling that
he is participating in changing the lives of students for the better. It is not the profession
where everyone succeeds. Only teachers with positive attitudes toward the teaching
profession can succeed because their attitudes make them patient, prepared, flexible,
openminded, and strong.