Teacher professionalism is not…

…just an individual responsibility.

Hello all. Welcome to the 166th edition of TEPS Weekly!

While attending a workshop for educators, we heard a participant say, “If teaching were like a corporate job, it would be much worse. Professional teachers would finish their work and not think of students after that. They wouldn’t care about students at all.”

The comment stayed with us. It made us think of how narrowly people understand professionalism. We imagine a professional as someone who has clear working hours, emotional distance, defined responsibilities and visible expertise. Are these features the same for all professions? Teachers often carry students’ struggles home. They worry about learning gaps, family contexts, classroom conflicts and children who are falling behind. But does that make teaching less professional? Or does it mean that teacher professionalism needs to be understood differently?

In India, we often call teaching a ‘noble profession.’ It reminds us that teaching is connected to service, responsibility and the larger good of society. Many of us still imagine the teacher through the idea of the 'guru' – someone who gives knowledge, guidance, care and moral direction. We praise teachers for being patient, sincere and hardworking, but we speak much less about the professional knowledge that teaching requires. A teacher needs to understand how children learn. A teacher needs subject knowledge. A teacher needs to know how to break down concepts, design questions, assess understanding, respond to learner diversity, manage a classroom, build trust, and make hundreds of small decisions during a lesson. But when we speak only about dedication and sacrifice, we make the expertise of teaching invisible.

Teaching is more than noble work

When teaching is ‘glorified’ as ‘noble’, it creates a set of subtle but serious problems: 

• Teachers are expected to sacrifice personal well-being, time and resources for the children, making it socially unacceptable, ‘selfish’ or ‘unprofessional’ to complain, ask for better pay and working conditions, set limits or take a leave.

• The idealised teacher (endlessly patient, self-sacrificing, inspirational) is unattainable, leading to guilt, burnout and imposter syndrome.

• Glorification shifts focus to individual teacher heroism rather than fixing systemic issues like poor funding, policy or school conditions. 

• It becomes difficult to address underperformance or poor practice when the profession is treated as sacred. 

Teacher professionalism is a systemic responsibility too

Teachers are often expected to take on many duties beyond teaching. They conduct election duties, support census work, manage surveys, documentation, data entry, verification, reports and other administrative tasks. Some of these tasks may be important for the system, but they also take teachers away from their core work – enabling student learning.

Let's compare this to other professions: Would surgeons, lawyers, engineers or chartered accountants pull away from their specialised work for unrelated administrative duties? Usually, they do not. It is understood that their professional time needs to be protected because their work requires expertise. For a long time, nursing was also viewed mainly through the language of care, sacrifice, obedience and service. Nurses were appreciated for their compassion, and their professional expertise was not always fully recognised. Over time, nursing became more professionalised. It became connected to specialised education, professional standards, certifications, associations, defined responsibilities, clinical expertise and clearer professional boundaries. Care did not disappear from nursing, but care alone stopped defining nursing. Teaching needs similar shifts, but with teaching, these boundaries are often considered weaker. This does not mean teachers should never contribute to school or society beyond classroom teaching. Schools are communities, and teachers are important members of that community. 

Teachers must build expertise, and the system must also create conditions where their expertise can grow and be respected.

So, how do we strengthen teacher professionalism in practice?

While there may be systemic and personal challenges, teacher professionalism can be strengthened in everyday work by: 

1. establishing expectations and accountability

2. providing support to help teachers meet those expectations 

3. reducing unrelated and excessive workload 

Let us look at how each of these can strengthen teacher professionalism. 

1. Establishing Expectations and Accountability

The National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) attempts to take the first step by describing the expectations from teachers. These expectations are called standards – they act as agreed benchmarks for what teachers should know, do and demonstrate in their work. When teachers practise according to these expectations, they demonstrate professionalism and function as professionals. NPST identifies three broad standards of teacher professionalism:

1. Core Values and Ethics: Treating students fairly, protecting their dignity and creating a classroom where every child feels safe and valued. 

2. Knowledge and Practice: What teachers know and how they use that knowledge in the classroom. It includes understanding students, subject knowledge, pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, learning needs and classroom strategies. A professional teacher does not only ask, 'Did I teach this?' A professional teacher asks, “Did students understand this? How do I know? What should I do next?”

3. Professional Growth and Development: Teachers continue to learn throughout their careers. They reflect on their practice, identify learning needs, participate in professional development, engage with colleagues and improve their teaching over time. Professionalism does not mean already knowing everything. It means taking responsibility for becoming better. 

These expectations, set through standards, make teaching visible as skilled professional work rather than routine content delivery. They provide direction for teacher preparation, professional development, classroom practice and reflection. They also clarify what teachers are accountable for in their professional practice.

2. Providing Support to Help Teachers Meet Professional Standards 

The NPST demands accountability from teachers through defined expectations. But for teachers to meet and grow towards those standards, the system must actively support them. Teacher professionalism can be supported through:

1. Continuous and contextual professional development: Teacher learning should be ongoing, school-based and directly linked to teachers’ daily teaching experiences.  

2. Supportive instructional leadership: School leaders should guide teaching practice, support reflection and protect teacher time. 

3. Autonomy and trust in teachers: Teachers should be trusted as decision-makers in curriculum interpretation, pedagogy and assessment. 

4. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs): Teachers should have regular opportunities to collaborate, discuss practice, observe classrooms and reflect together. 

5. Protected time for planning, teaching and reflection: Teachers need dedicated time to plan lessons, review student learning and reflect on their teaching. 

6. Constructive feedback culture: Teachers improve faster when feedback is specific, respectful and focused on practice, not judgmental. 

7. Recognition of professional effort: Professional effort (innovation, collaboration, reflection) should be acknowledged and rewarded through growth opportunities, career pathways and/or monetary benefits.

8. Paying attention to compensation and working conditions: Teachers should receive fair pay, stable contracts and respectful workplace policies that recognise the expertise and responsibility their work requires. 

3. Reducing Unrelated and Excessive Workload 

Teachers are often overloaded with both administrative work within schools and duties unrelated to their role as teachers. Here are some practical ways to reduce this workload: 

1. Use AI tools, digital systems and centralised data: Attendance, assessments, feedback, communication, lesson planning and student records can be managed in one place to reduce repeated manual work. 

2. Create reusable templates and shared resources: Common templates and shared resource banks can reduce repeated preparation and documentation work.  

3. Adopt a single communication platform: Using one organised platform instead of multiple WhatsApp groups, emails, diaries and notices can reduce confusion, repeated follow-up and scattered communication. 

4. Assign non-teaching work to support staff: Clerical, documentation, data-entry and verification work should be handled by administrative or support staff. 

5. Rotate unavoidable duties fairly: If non-teaching duties cannot be avoided, they should be distributed fairly and transparently. 

6. Escalate repeated external demands: School leaders should raise concerns when external duties repeatedly affect teaching time. 

7. Review duties term-wise: At the end of each term, review which non-teaching tasks took the most time and decide what can be removed, delegated or simplified.

Professionalism is the way a professional carries out their work responsibly, ethically and competently according to the expectations and standards of the profession. Teacher professionalism cannot depend only on teachers’ individual effort and dedication. Teachers must work towards clear professional standards with responsibility and accountability, but systems must also provide the support, resources, fair working conditions, fair compensation and incentives needed for teachers to meet those standards, improve their performance and grow in the profession.

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Edition: 5.21