A STUDY OF MALE AND FEMALE SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS FOR THEIR PROFESSIONALISM

Professionalism has always been in the area of interest for people. It deals with the art of being perfect in your area of work. Professionalism means to be complete in oneself and that one is not required to be reminded of duties and responsibilities. Considering teaching as profession has always been a hot topic. There is a school of thought that opines for the teaching as a profession as it requires necessary hard work, skills and qualification along with training and internship, where as the other school of thought opines against teaching as a profession as it does not include any official ceremony for awarding professional qualification and that there is no single organization where the teachers are registered as a professional. As such there are many view points of this. The present research just focuses on the professionalism of a Male teacher as compared to a Female teacher. The study was conducted on 1044 teachers of secondary schools in Saurashtra Region Comprising of 11 districts of Gujarat. The study was conducted using a self constructed scale “Secondary School Teachers Professionalism Scale”. The variable under study was Gender. The method of research was descriptive survey research. The tool comprised of ten components viz. Time Keeping, Content Mastery, Contemporary Knowledge, Communication with Students, Communication with Colleagues, Delivery Mechanism, Pro-Activeness and Follow up, Parents Counselling and Students Counselling. The findings of research are, there was no considerable difference between the mean scores of Male and Female for Time Keeping, Content Mastery, Contemporary Knowledge, Physical Appearance, Communication with Students, Communication with Colleagues, Delivery Mechanism, ProActiveness and Follow Up, Parents Counselling and Students Counselling. Thus it can be said that Gender as a variable does not affect the professionalism of Secondary School Teachers. Schools and Educational institutes can use the tool to measure the professionalism of teachers and can device training programmes to enhance professionalism for relevant components. Over all, the research will help the teacher in general to measure the professionalism of self and motivate development of professionalism. KEYWORDS: Professionalism, SSTPS (Secondary School Teachers Professionalism Scale), Time Keeping, Content Mastery, Contemporary Knowledge, Delivery Mechanism, Pro Activeness and Followups, Parents Counselling, Students Counselling, Teachers Beliefs, Professional Qualification