Autonomy of Teacher

Autonomy of Teachers



Autonomy of Teachers

Introduction

The educational policies that have been made across Europe in the past twenty years have laid emphasis on the improvement in the quality of education that is being provided to the students. The major emphasis that has been laid in these policies is the innovation to be brought in teaching and the reinforcement of the professionalization of the teachers. Such a change increases the responsibility of the teachers and widens the scope of their duties. This also in turn, changes the status and conditions of teaching. Professional development and its continuation is bringing out enhanced knowledge and development of the teachers, as well as, encouraging them to adopt techniques that are innovative. The autonomy that the teachers have also has been addressed by many people. The schools today have become increasingly autonomous and similarly, the role of the teachers has changed with it too. The learning environment has become open and accustomed to autonomy, and the teachers now also have an increased autonomy with themselves. This autonomy also brings along increased responsibility on the teachers. This increased autonomy and the increased responsibility also goes hand in hand with increased accountability of the teachers. This increased accountability is not only now based on the ability of the teachers to follow the operational procedures of the institution, but also changes the evaluation of the results (quimbaya.udea.edu.co).

Discussion

There are many things that need to be looked into when one discussed autonomy of teachers. This includes the discussion on the importance of ethics in education.

Ethics in Education

When one discusses about the ethics in education, one cannot limit the discussion to be just one sided. This discussion cannot be restricted to only the side of the students as being ethical, but also needs to include teachers and administrators, as well as, their behavior and consider it to be ethical or not. Young people, especially students learn ethics and ethical behavior by looking at the older people around them. The same case goes with the students. The students learn to behave ethically or unethically from their teachers. In the modern society, there is a general perception that everything is right ethically and morally if one is not caught doing it. There are many news that one gets to hear day that many big corporation take such decisions that are legally right but ethically and morally wrong (quimbaya.udea.edu.co). Therefore, one cannot expect that the students will act ethically right if everybody around them is not acting ethically and making full use of the situation that they are in even if it is ethically correct or not. There are many incidents in primary school where the students are taught of the ethics related to their homework. However, there are many incidents in the primary school where the teachers and the administrators act in a behavior that is completely unethical and immoral. Teachers and the administrators then also not take the responsibility of their ...