Attention to improving the status of the teaching profession is not new in India. National reports from as early as the 1960s have emphasised the need to professionalise and improve teacher status to positively affect recruitment and retention. The Karnataka Teacher Study (KTS) is a quantitative research project executed in one state of India to explore teachers’ perceptions of their status and how this could be improved. By using Hoyle’s (2001) three dimensions of status (prestige, status and esteem) and the survey instrument from the United Kingdom’s Teacher Status Project (2006), this paper finds that teachers view their profession positively and are motivated by intrinsic rewards from the service-orientated nature of their work. While feeling respected by their immediate circle, changes such as salary increases, better working conditions and more professional development opportunities were found to impact status. The KTS teachers also viewed increased teacher specialisation, autonomy and reduced control and regulation of teaching work positively. While the professionalisation of teaching work has been recommended by the landmark judgment – the Right to Education Act (2009) and most recent policy documents, including the National Policy on Education (2016) and the Karnataka State Education Policy (2016), the enhancement of occupational esteem of the profession through the efforts of teachers themselves is a missing viewpoint from both teachers and policymakers. In today’s changing educational scenario, teacher status can be improved if teachers initiate the effort to bridge the gap between how they view themselves and how they feel they are viewed externally. In this paper I make a case for improved teacher status by giving teachers opportunities to understand, internalise and communicate the complexity of teaching work, which will additionally have implications for school leaders and policymakers.
The Karnataka Teacher Study: Understanding the Status of the Teaching Profession
Kacharakanahally Ramamurthy, T. (Author). 2018
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy