Chapter 1
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The primary focus of this study is to understand and evaluate the various factors affecting the career growth and development of university professors in India. Their job efficacy, number of years in the profession, degree of job satisfaction, gender, age, their various experiences at their job, their area of specialization and their future career prospects, resources and plans.
The secondary focus of the study is to examine and evaluate if there is any presence of caste and gender bias or discrimination in the teaching profession. It can be on various aspects of the job like in the process of recruitment, training and developmental opportunities, pay and promotion.
1.2 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
In India, the education sector is one of the biggest and a developing sector as it offers a huge untapped market in regulated and non-regulated sectors due to low literacy rate, high concentration in urban and sub urban areas and growing per capita income.Over the last few decades, India has remarkably transformed its education landscape.
The education industry, specifically the higher education sector, has attained a key position in the national and global level. Thus this causes a need for the rise in the number of the teaching faculty.
In India, majority of the professors (also referred to as lecturers) are suffering from various challenges. They are entitled to be paid on-time salary, leave allowances, promotion. But these are the main aspects of their job or be in any kind of a job. Another challenge is the one concerning with their career as a professor and their career development. This is considered significant in the long run as it involves career growth and trajectories.
There are many factors that affect the career growth of the professors in India. They can be classified as the nature of the job related factors and the caste and gender related factors.
Hall (1986) states “career is a sequence of related work experiences and activities, directed at personal and organisational goals, through which a person passes during his or her lifetime, that are partly under their control and partly under that of others.” This definition clearly states that career management is a joint responsibility between the individual and also the organisation that employs them.
According to Stones and Freeman (1992) special training for career development and motivation should be undertaken by supervisors for the development of the employees. Hence the same applies to the teaching profession where supervisory support plays an important part in career growth. Career advancement of individuals involves future opportunities in terms of promotion, which serves as a motivating factor for performance and development of individual’s abilities, thereby assisting individuals in determining their career path and attaining their future career goals.
Hence career development is gaining more attention from various organisations as an effort to improve job performance of the individuals and the overall job itself.
India has a long and strong history with caste and gender discrimination. Though globalisation has brought about development and growth, the roots of casteism and gender bias still persist in India. There still exists still a lot of discrepancies in the treatment people on the basis of different caste and gender of people in different occupations. The same exists in the teaching profession.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
1.3.1 General objective
The purpose of the study was to analyze the nature of career development of the professors in the teaching industry.
1.3.2 Specific objectives
1) To assess careers and career trajectories and advancement of university professors in India.
2) To investigate the constraints to their career advancement.
3) To assess the level of motivation and job satisfaction among the professors.
4) To investigate and discuss their thoughts, perceptions and suggestions to minimize the constraints to career advancement.
5) To assess the effect of the constraints on their careers.
6) To examine the presence of caste and gender discrimination in the teaching profession and analyze its effects on careers of professors and minimize the same.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study aims to create knowledge about the career and career development of university professors in India. It also speaks about the constraints and how the constraints can be overcome and its effect on job motivation of employees.
In addition, this study also examines organisational factors that influence the career development of the professors. Results of this analysis are important in helping education institutions to improve their practices as well as provide an insight for future planning of career development strategies. These factors which influence career development strategies provide a groundwork for designing a better career opportunities for employees.
Further more, the findings of this study also contributes beneficial to evaluate the role played by caste and gender in the careers of professors and in the overall teaching profession. It is hoped that this study recognizes the bias and discrimination carried out on the basis of the caste and gender and also the findingsare able to create awareness as to how to eliminate it from the system.
As this study is carried out in Mangalore, and Mangalore being one of the finest educational hub in India, the primary beneficiary would be KGCTA (Karnataka Government College Teachers Association), which is an elected body that works for the realization of rights of university professors, other boards and associations and the Management of the various universities in India.
It was hoped that the findings of the study would enable policy makers to seriously address the issues regarding career of the university professors and to eliminate any kind of bias or ill treatment with regards to caste and gender.
Many educational institutions, which may have similar problems, could learn from this study and they could give more attention to their career development and career advancement policies of their professors and address other loopholes in the system
1.5 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The major limitation of the study was the unwillingness of some of the sampled individuals to participate in the interviews due to their heavy schedule.
Some professors were just not willing to take part in the interview as they did want to be a part of the study and were not willing to speak against the bias going around because of fear of the information leaking out even though complete anonimity and safety of information was assured.
Again, disappointment received from some of the respondents in terms of the return of their unclear responses and unwillingless to answer some of the questions, specifically some of the caste and gender sensitive questions. Hence making it a little difficult to collect complete information and expose the truth.
This study is conducted in educational institutions in a developing city like Mangalore, and thus, the findings of this study may not be generalised to reflect the practices of other educational institutions in other developed metro cities of india upto a hundred percentile. Similar study should be conducted in other developed cities in order to compare the findings of this research.
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