Explain the perception of the teacher by the public

The perception of the teacher by the public varies from place to place. In rural areas where most professions are absent, teachers are held in very high esteem. In urban areas the teacher's status is not very high (Ezewu 1983:132). The poor social status of the teacher could be attributed to various factors such as the following:
a) The Number of Teachers
Teaches are very common employees of the government. They are present all over the country. In Kenya, one major factor militating against professionalism in teaching is the large number of entrants in the field. With free primary education, pre service and parallel programmes the recruitment of teachers is high. Besides interfering with the quality of the profession, large recruitment of teachers into training affects their economic status particularly wages. They are lowly paid and this affects their upward mobility. With a large number of teachers trained and unemployed, any threat to down tools by those employed does not have a major impact since replacement is available. Some of the teachers join the profession as a last resort. They may not be committed to the profession, hence high turn over.
b) Personal Benefit
People tend to accord a profession a high status if such a position provides opportunities for people to derive some benefit from it materially or otherwise. The medical profession is ranked highly because people value their health and doctors come to their aid in cases of ill health. Since people hardly beg teachers for assistance unless maybe school principals, teachers hardly enjoy high esteem in the eyes of the public.
c) Socio-Economic Background of Entrants
The standing and respect accorded to a profession is to some extent affected by the social class background of its recruits. The higher the socioeconomic strata from which the majority of recruits generally come, the higher the status of the profession and the more it will attract recruits from the higher social strata. The more economic empowered the members in a profession the stronger they are at fighting for better term to uphold the socio economic status of members within their profession and restricting entry to he profession.
Originally, teaching was a career pursued by the well to do in society. It was a means of upward social mobility. However, the demand for education coupled to the increase in teacher training colleges, universities and teacher courses for mature students such as open leaning, distance learning and parallel programmes opened up more chances for training in teaching resulting in more recruitments from poor family backgrounds joining the profession. The low fee charged in teacher training as compared to medicine or law has resulted in many trainees from the low socio economic status families joining the profession thus contributing to the lower status of the profession and the inability of its members to bargain for better terms.
d) External Administration
Teachers hardly manage their own affairs. In the Ministry of Education, the Permanent Secretaries are administrators, employees of the Public Service commission. This situation tends to prevent teachers from becoming their own masters. In a situation where civil servants and local authority workers manage the affairs of teachers, teachers have little say in the decisions made.
e) Internalization of training
Teachers are expected not only to learn the various school subjects but also to behave in a way befitting the people who are to bring up the young generation. The teacher has to appreciate the level of the pupils in order to fit properly. This is sometimes regarded by society as being timid.

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Moraa orina answered the question on August 21, 2018 at 13:14