EDUCATION AND TEACHER PROFESSIONALISM

Teacher professionalism is increasingly discussed in the academics and government as a sort of panacea to current education problems. While the debate on teaching as a profession is old, the idea of teacher professionalism has its origin in the West in the 1990s. Though the literature emerging from the West is not irrelevant in itself, we need to contextualize it in view of the history, culture and society of India.

The book discusses the idea of teacher professionalism in the light of associated concepts of profession and professionalization. Besides a definition of teacher professionalism to figure out its emerging contours, it also offers a definition of education after going through its philosophical and sociological perspectives. In fact, teacher professionalism will look vacuous without an understanding and agreement on ‘what is education’. The book also makes an attempt to reconstruct development of schooling in post-independent Orissa.

The central thrust of the book is that teaching is different from other professions and the context of school teaching in India is significantly different from the West. It will be useful for students pursuing education both at the graduation and post-graduation levels as an academic or professional subject.

Sthabir Khora is Assistant Professor in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He was associated with ‘Monitoring of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in Madhya Pradesh’ from 2007-2009. His articles on education have appeared in “Economic & Political Weekly” and the “Indian Journal of Social Work”.