A SWOT Analysis: An Effective Technique To Analyse Teachers' Initiatives In Professional Development Programme

Abstract

Teaching at the higher level is more than mere dissemination of knowledge or classroom teaching. The most important job of teacher is to initiate the students into unchartered areas of knowledge both through keeping themselves abreast of the new developments in their area of specialization and through professional activities, like writing in journals or attending conferences or through understanding research on their own. Also, the person needs to have undergone advanced professional education. It embraces personal development and staff development, the collegiality of the group.  With growing stress on performance-based measurements of academic accomplishment; and escalating attack on the research task of higher educational institutions it is time to see what measures are being adopted by university teachers to realize their obligations towards their institutions and towards their professional development? Thus the main objectives of the study were to investigate whether teachers understand the concept of Professional Development and Teacher Initiatives, to identify the need of Professional Development in the teaching profession and to study the opinion of the university teachers regarding strength, weakness, opportunities and threats in their professional development. Descriptive survey method and SWOT analysis techniques were applied for the study. The simple random sampling method was used to select 60 teachers from Dayalbagh Educational Institute and Ambedkar University. Percentage was calculated on the basis of frequencies. The results indicated that the teachers are well aware of the concept of professional development and teachers' initiative. The opinion regarding the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat of professional development were also given by the teachers.