Accountability and Effectiveness: A Teacher’s Perspective

The time changes not only in India but everywhere in the world and everything is measured in terms of material gains, not in spiritual or metaphysical faith on presumption. Teacher’s position in the modern society has degraded and his functions are not taken for granted. Rather, everybody is raising one’s eyebrow at the honesty and integrity of the teacher; his sincerity or purpose is questioned and his work is criticized at all levels of the society. It is alleged that the quality of education has deteriorated in all stages of education.

The teacher’s account of performance is now overboard and is going to be checked by the planners, administrators, supervisors and statesmen. In brief, the teacher’s work is now under bright searchlight and his accountability is being considered from various angles.

Teacher’s Accountability:

The Encyclopaedia of Education defines accountability as “a process which involves the duty both of individuals and the organizations of which they are part to render periodically accounts for tasks performed, to a body having both, the power and authority, to modify that performance subsequently perhaps, by use of sanction or reward”.

Since teachers were regarded as persons of high calibre and of unquestionable integrity, they were never required to show any proof of their accountability. Teacher’s accountability was never a subject of evaluation at any stage. Recently, however, school teacher’s sense of responsibility and integrity has been questioned and many of them are criticized for their money-earning motive, negligence of duty and obligations, it is observed. It is said that they are more for improving their service conditions and emoluments than for discharging their legitimate duties and responsibilities. Particularly, deterioration in the quality of education and poor performance of pupils particularly belonging to the government schools and elsewhere have raised the question of teacher’s accountability. 

There is urgent need of overhauling of the education system and fixing accountability at all levels of education—primary, secondary and higher secondary education level. Primary and Secondary education are in real sense, the foundation stone of one’s educational career. A Student’s personality is influenced by his parents, friends and society, no doubt, but he is most influenced by the type of personality his teachers possess. At higher education level, education has been equally neglected. If teachers do their work properly, devotedly and sincerely, there can be proper ground and development of the academic career of the students.

Unless teachers create work-culture and become conscious workers, things are not going to change. But the general public is not probably honest to bring about changes in themselves. It is, therefore, inevitable to fix accountability on the basis of payment-by-result.

Teacher’s Effectiveness:

It is a fact that today’s society has become very much complex due to scientific and technological advancement. As such, the need for skilled and efficient people has increased. In this regard, school teachers also face a challenging decade. To meet the situation better management of educational enterprise is felt necessary. That is why unskilled and inefficient teachers cannot maintain and manage the present educational system in order to meet the challenge of the complex society. Thus it has become a very urgent necessity to find out efficient teachers. Teacher effectiveness deals with relationships between the characteristics of teachers teaching acts and their effect on the educational outcomes of classroom teaching.

Effective teachers possess certain distinct characteristics which are not found in ineffective teachers. But it is a very controversial issue to tell the exact characteristic that identifies an effective teacher. Many researches have been carried out in this connection. Some research findings emphasize cognitive characteristics, some others personal and affective characteristics. In this regard, some of the characteristic that determine an effective teacher may be discussed.

• Effective teachers are hard working and laborious. They never view success as a matter of chance.
• Effective teachers never become disheartened due to their failure. They consider that “Failure is the pillar of success”. It can be overcome by constant effort.
• Effective teachers are mentally healthy.
• Effective teachers have positive attitudes towards others as well as their vocation. They are more responsible in their action. They are self-confident and cheerful.
• Effective teachers possess greater verbal intelligence, good academic background and greater intellectual ability.
• Effective teachers are very sociable and like to participate in different social groups.
• Effective teachers are well aware of the subject matter they teach in the class. They organize different co-curricular activities in the school. They have a good relationship with the students, parents, administrators etc.
• The effective teachers possess a very influential personality. They exhibit good judgement and reasoning capacity.

These are some of the characteristics of an effective teacher. However these are not present in all the teachers. Teacher effectiveness is assessed by three types of criteria namely, process, product and presage. Teacher effectiveness is assessed by observing teacher’s behaviour and student’s behaviour. Relating to product, teacher effectiveness can be judged from the achievements of the students. The third type of criterion i.e. presage rests on academic background and personal characteristics. It can be assessed from the teacher’s college records, marks, test score etc. But it is better that the teacher should take all the three types of criterion into consideration while assessing teacher effectiveness.

Conclusion:

Thus we can conclude that both aspects mentioned above are very much relevant so far as the teacher perspectives are concerned. Effective teachers can raise the standard of education. They can establish positive relationships between the parents, learners, administrators and the society at large. The quality of education depends on the quality of teachers. Teacher Effectiveness and Teacher Accountability go hand in hand.