The Attitudes of Teachers on the Effectiveness of State and Central Government Schools

The Attitudes of Teachers on the Effectiveness of State and Central Government Schools

Dr. M. Solomon Raju

Asst. Professor, Department of Education, Andhra University Visakhapatnam Andhra Pradesh

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51584/IJRIAS.2025.100500075

Received: 26 May 2025; Accepted: 02 June 2025; Published: 14 June 2025

ABSTRACT

Allowyn and Bacon states that Education should help the child to adjust himself/herself physically and mentally to his/her environment and to the changing circumstances in his/her life. Education means the modification of behavior of the student in relation to the existing social conditions. Education on the one hand, develops the full personality of an individual-making him intelligent, learned, bold, courageous and strong 2 with good character and on the other hand, it contributes to the growth and development of the Nation in general and the society in particular. Every human being, especially every child, has a right to education, to knowledge and to learn. The acquisition of knowledge and information helps an individual to improve his/her own quality of life as well as to participate meaningfully in community life. The growth of the child and learning of the child will depend on the effectiveness of the school. So, this research paper can give analysis, “A study on the attitude of teachers on the effectiveness of state and central government schools”

Key Words: Education, environment, modification, personality, learned, effectiveness, government schools.

INTRODUCTION

Education is a fundamental element of human development, which opens new vistas and provides access and mobility, to the world at large and challenges the same human being with ample opportunities and choices. Every human being, especially every child, has a right to education, to knowledge and to learn. The acquisition of knowledge and information helps an individual to improve his/her own quality of life as well as to participate meaningfully in community life. From the social benefit prospects, education is an investment in human capital and leads to higher productivity and earning power.

It is only through education that moral ideals and spiritual values, the aspirations of the nation and its cultural heritage are transferred from one generation to the other for preservation, purification and sublimation into higher and higher achievements. In other words, with the growth and development of the individual, the society also achieves higher levels of attainments. Thus, education is greatly essential for the growth and development of an individual as well as the society, besides it has social functions also.

Teacher Effectiveness: This section explores those factors that make a teacher effective. Recent research reveals that most variation in overall school effectiveness is due to classroom level factors rather than school level factors. For these reasons it is important to try to identify what makes an effective teacher.

Aspects of effective teaching include:

1. Having a positive attitude
2. The development of a pleasant social / psychological climate in the classroom
3. Having high expectations of what pupils can achieve
4. Lesson clarity
5. Effective time management
6. Strong lesson structuring
7. The use of a variety of teaching methods
8. Using and incorporating pupil ideas
9. Using appropriate and varied questioning.

However, effective teaching methods are context specific. What is needed for a teacher to be effective can vary depending upon factors such as:

1. The type of activity in the lesson
2. The subject matter
3. The pupil backgrounds (such as age, ability, sex, socio-economic status and ethnicity)
4. The pupils’ personal characteristics (such as personality, learning style, motivation and self-esteem)
5. The culture / organization of the department, school and LEA.

Teacher effectiveness has been found to strongly influence student progress. This paper explores the contribution of a number of factors, such as teacher behavior, beliefs, self-efficacy and knowledge, which have been identified in the research literature as possibly leading to differences in teacher effectiveness. The results of this analysis indicate that teacher behavior has the most significant effect on teacher effectiveness and therefore that it should form a significant component of ITT. Teacher effectiveness has a significant affect upon student performance. This paper explores ways in which to help teachers become more effective. Ideas covered are: creating an applied science of teaching to provide guidelines on how to teach, aiming some school reforms at the teacher / classroom level instead of at the managerial / school level only, using within school variation in teaching practice to help improve teaching across a school.

Need of the Study 

The need of the study is the reason of decreasing of students in state government schools. Though government is providing Mid-day meals, enough computer labs, English medium instruction dropouts are there from primary classes to secondary classes in rural areas. State government schools lack of drinking water, proper sanitation, books, uniform etc. Though they have playground, these schools lack Physical Education teachers. As Central government schools like Kendriya Vidyalayas, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samithis have playground with male and female PETs. As they follow Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) by CBSE, students are alert and active in studies. They follow Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) that means Morning Assembly programmes, Inter House Competitions, various activity clubs, Scout Association, School Choirs(singing groups)etc. They will spend more time on CCA, so mind and body work actively. Though state government schools have English medium instruction, teachers lack language skills and students are unable to understand the subject. The present scenario tells us about the decreasing of students in government schools. Hence, the investigator conducted a study on Attitudes of Teachers on Effectiveness of State and Central Government Schools in Vizianagaram.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Joyce Nyandoro, John Mapfumo, Richard Makoni Joyce Nyandoro, John Mapfumo, Richard Makoni: Effectiveness of school development committees in financial management in chimanimani west circuit Primary schools in Zimbabwe. This study examined the effectiveness of School Development Committees in financial management in Chimanimani West Circuit primary schools (Manicaland Province, Zimbabwe). The descriptive survey method was found to be the most appropriate method for this study. A questionnaire was administered to six School Development. Committees of the six primary schools which were randomly selected from Chimanimani West Circuit. An interview was also conducted on the Head, the teacher, the Deputy Head, the School Development Committees’ chairperson and the treasurer of each school. The study revealed that School Development Committees were not effective in managing funds for their schools due to lack of skills in various aspects of financial management such as preparation and use of budget for decision making, keeping inventory of school assets and raising funds. The researchers recommended the provision of capacity building programmes to the School Development Committees and parents in rural schools in Chimanimani West Circuit by the government, inclusion of a course on decentralization of education in teacher education curriculum and thorough supervision of School Development Committees to ensure school funds are managed properly in rural schools.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Scientific reporting of methodology presumes that the details of the procedure adopted (especially if it is an empirical study using quantitative data) are adequately reported in terms of the design, tools used for collecting the data, the details of the sample used for the collection of data and details of statistical procedures used for dealing with the collected data, to be supported by the details relating to the procedure used for data collection and analysis. These are reported in the present chapter with all essential details.

Objectives of the present study

1. To study the attitude of teachers towards Effectiveness in State and Central Government Schools of Vizianagaram.
2. To study the attitude of male and female teachers towards Effectiveness in State and Central Government Schools of Vizianagaram.

Variables of the of the of the study

The following variables incorporated in the sample drawn from the teachers for the present investigation as:

1. Gender
2. Professional Qualification
3. Locality
4. School Management
5. Medium
6. Teaching Experience

Hypotheses of the present study

There will be no significant difference between male and female teachers’ attitude towards Effectiveness in State and Central Government Schools of Vizianagaram.

Design of the Study

The type of research undertaken by the investigator is exploratory in nature. It is a descriptive survey method of research. The word ‘survey’ has been derived from the two words ‘sure’ and ‘veer’ which means ‘over’ and ‘see’ respectively. Descriptive survey tells us ‘what is’. This has a very wide scope. It describes and interprets what exists at present.

The opinionnaire was constructed for the teachers to find out the effectiveness of State and Central government schools. The tool was prepared to find out the preliminary information about the Teacher Effectiveness, Effectiveness of Curriculum, Curricular & Co-Curricular Activities, Administrative Process and Examination System.

Construction of the tool

The present investigation is intended to study the Opinions of teachers towards effectiveness of State and Central government schools.  After going through various previous investigations and research articles in journals and periodicals and some of the research papers published on the subject matter, the investigator has present research problem taken into the opinions of teachers towards effectiveness of State and Central government schools. The investigator had developed and adopted the tool to collect the opinions.

Standardization of the Tool

The opinionnare was constructed for the teachers.  The pilot testing was done on 30 teachers randomly selected from the State and Central Government schools in Vizianagaram. The data analyzed and the Reliability test was calculated.  Item Analysis was carried out to find out the Difficulty and Discrimination of each of the items.   The Reliability Coefficient of the Tool was calculated using split half method and found to be 0.82.  The items which are unanswered by all teachers and which are marked by undecided / blank by all are omitted.  The items with poor discriminating value are also deleted.  After deleting those items the research tool was validated by three subject experts for the content validity and the construct validity.  The items which are identified as vague or unclear were removed.

Table 1 Showing the area wise items

Item Validity

All the responses made by the subjects significance of the items.  Garrett says that Chi–Square test provides a method of comparing the observed frequencies with the theoretical frequencies that are to be expected. The difference between the observed and expected frequencies are squared and divided by the expected number in each case and the sum of the equation χ² (Chi-square).

Table 2  Item Analysis (Chi-square test)

**Significant at 0.01, *Significant at 0.05  and NS: Not Significant

Data Collection: A brief orientation is given before distributing the tool to the sample necessary instructions are provided to teachers. No time limit is kept for the answering of the tool but almost all teachers answered the tool within half an hour time. Hence, 100 teachers are selected from Secondary Schools in rural and urban areas of Vizianagaram.

Statistical Techniques Used

As the present study is of more of qualitative in nature, collected data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative techniques. Quantitative data were analyzed with the simple statistical techniques. The investigation has been carried out by the descriptive statistical analysis, such as calculating measures of central tendency like Mean and calculating measures of dispersion like Standard Deviation. For testing the null hypothesis, the ‘t’ – test and Analysis of Variance have been used by the investigator. The ’t’ test was used to test the null hypothesis when the data was correlated from matched groups. Analysis of (ANOVA) variance was used to find out the effect, if any, of the variables studied. The data were coded and prepared for analysis using MS-EXCEL and SPSS.

Analysis and Interpretation of Data

The research work done in any field is said to be more meaningful and purposeful when the data collected is carefully processed and systematically analyzed. On the basis of this analysis and interpretation, the researcher will be able to arrive at meaningful conclusions and draw proper inferences.

Table-1: Overall attitudes of Teachers on the effectiveness in State and Central Government Schools in Vizianagaram

From the above table -1 teachers showed more positive attitude with respect to overall response on Effectiveness of Schools, Teacher Effectiveness, Effectiveness of Curriculum, Curricular & Co-Curricular Activities, Administrative Process and Examination System towards Effectiveness of State and Central Government Schools in Vizianagaram. The mean values are found to be 73.75, 24.78, 5.65, 18.53, 14.98 and 9.81 which are 92.19%, 95.31%, 94.17%, 84.23%, 93.63% and 98.10% of their Total score respectively.

Table – 2: Significant difference between male and female teachers attitudes on the effectiveness in State and Central Government Schools in Vizianagaram

** Significant at 0.01, *Significant at 0.05 level and NS: Not Significant

Table – 2 observed that, the mean opinion scores of female teachers with respect to overall attitude on Effectiveness of schools in State and Central Government (74.60) is slightly higher than the mean score of male teachers (72.37). The calculated‘t-value’ is 1.86 and p value is 0.07, which is not significant. This shows that there is no significant difference between male and female teachers overall attitude on Effectiveness of schools in State and Central Government in Vizianagaram. Hence, the null hypothesis is accepted.

With regard to Teacher effectiveness, the mean opinion scores of female teachers (25.18) is higher than the mean score of male teachers (24.13). The calculated  ‘t-value’ is 3.02 and p-value is 0.00, which is significant at 0.01 level. This shows that there is a significant difference between male and female teachers opinion with respect to teacher effectiveness. Hence, the null hypothesis is rejected.

With regard to Effectiveness of Curriculum, the mean opinion scores of female teachers (5.82) is higher than the mean score of male teachers (5.37). The calculated ‘t-value’ is 2.54 and p-value is 0.01, which is significant at 0.05 level. This shows that there is a significant difference between male and female teachers opinion with respect to Effectiveness of Curriculum. Hence, the null hypothesis is rejected.

With regard to Curricular & Co-curricular activities, the mean opinion scores of female teachers (18.65) is slightly higher than the mean score of male teachers (18.34). The calculated   ‘t-value’ is 0.48 and p-value is 0.63, which is not significant. This shows that there is no significant difference between male and female teachers opinion with respect to Curricular & Co-curricular activities. Hence, the null hypothesis is accepted.

With regard to Administrative Process, the mean opinion scores of female teachers (15.00) is slightly higher than the mean score of male teachers (14.95). The calculated  ‘t-value’ is 0.17 and p-value is 0.86, which is not significant. This shows that there is no significant difference between male and female teachers opinion with respect to Administrative Process. Hence, the null hypothesis is accepted.

With regard to Examination System, the mean opinion scores of female teachers (9.95) is higher than the mean score of male teachers (9.58). The calculated ‘t-value’ is 2.31 and p-value is 0.02, which is significant at 0.05 level. This shows that there is a significant difference between male and female teachers opinion with respect to Examination System. Hence, the null hypothesis is rejected.

Graph 1: Mean Comparison between male and female teachers attitudes on the effectiveness in State and Central Government Schools in Vizianagaram

Major Findings

1. Teachers showed more positive attitude with respect to overall response on Effectiveness of Schools, Teacher Effectiveness, Effectiveness of Curriculum, Curricular & Co-Curricular Activities, Administrative Process and Examination System towards Effectiveness of State and Central Government Schools in Vizianagaram.
2. There is no significant difference between male and female teacher’s attitude with respect to overall response on Effectiveness of Schools, Curricular & Co-Curricular Activities and Administrative Process towards Effectiveness of State and Central Government Schools in Vizianagaram.

CONCLUSIONS

Female teachers high positive attitude with respect to Teacher Effectiveness, Effectiveness of Curriculum and Examination System towards Effectiveness of State and Central Government Schools in Vizianagaram than that of male teachers and male and female teachers expressed one and the same opinion with respect to Effectiveness of Schools, Curricular & Co-Curricular Activities, Administrative Process towards Effectiveness of State and Central Government Schools in Vizianagaram. This may help in enhancing teacher morale and thus enhancing more effective teaching in rural schools. To have realistic teacher expectations concerning curriculum implementation, one should be knowledgeable about three areas of curriculum development. Provide a balance between management and instructional skills. Develop and implement plans for dealing with student’s reading problems

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