Professional competence and commitment of teachers: Need of the hour Sharma Asha*, Bisht Deepa**, Chopra Vanita*** *Associate Professor, VAKSM, Bahadurgarh **Assistant Professor, GIAST, Rohini, Delhi ***Assistant Professor, I H E, University of Delhi Online published on 20 February, 2014. Abstract The quality of a nation depends upon the quality of its citizens. The quality of the citizens rests upon the quality of their education. The quality of their education depends upon the competence, dedication and quality of teacher, not brick and mortar of the classroom, but the dialogues, rapport and interactions supported by deeds, between the learners and the teachers, all the time developing within its four walls can make or mar the destiny of the youngsters and in turn that of the nation. Education is the most powerful instrument whose effective use requires the strength of will, dedicated work and sacrifice. Since this instrument is in the hands of teachers, they must possess teaching competence and professional commitment for its effective use. Teacher education system holds a key responsibility in the making of professionally qualified and committed teachers. The deep-seated requirement for global standards of education is the trained graduates by professionally competent teachers. As it looks today, in the Indian context, where there is an outburst of education enterprise, there is a great demand for good committed teachers. This situation is common to all the developing countries. Teacher is considered as a professional because he is said to be trained to teach and to acquire core teaching skills. The profession of a teacher demands certain code of conduct or norms of behavior because he/she is supposed to be a role model and Nation builder for a particular society. The ethical conduct of teachers makes them responsible or accountable towards the pupils, management, society, and, most importantly, towards their own self. Since, teacher is said to be a candle that burns itself to consume others, they should develop appropriate ethics among themselves so that the same values can be developed among students. With this background, the paper will discuss the, professional commitment, professional competencies, strategies to develop professional competencies, professional ethics and suggestions to inculcate professional ethics. Top |