Teachers’ Organisations

Abstract

The academic ethos and teaching profession have come a long way since the time when there were no universities but only learned men seeking reliable and fundamental knowledge. We have examined earlier that societies have changed and with them universities have changed too. The obligations of the teachers in the form of discovery, acquisition and dissemination of knowledge have not changed but the conditions in which they are to be brought into action have changed. The decades of the 60s and 70s have been particularly difficult for the academic profession the worldover and this explains to a large measure the tilt towards unionization in the profession. The post World War I1 period was marked by an increasing dependence on higher education for technological developments, research and training and as a means for solving national problems. Consequently, the latter period witnessed dramatic increages in expenditure on higher education and equally dramatic enrolement increases. The growth in size and numbers had its own set of problems while increased funds implied government interest in the affairs of the academic and demands that universities account for their activities. There was also a growing dissatisfaction with the internal operation ofthe universities and their increasing bureaucratisation and simultaneously, alongwith a depressed academic job market, university teachers laboured under a general feeling of rapidly declining relative economic position. What we have discussed in the earlier units can be reiterated here, it can be said ofthe teaching profession that it is aWgentlemanly profession informed by the norms of a democratically self governing guild wllich is in the process of adapting itself to internal and external pressures". This unit is an attempt at analysing the r ~ l e and develop~nent of teachers' organization against this backdrop. The changing attitudes of university teacher with respect to trade union activities can also be understood only in the context of developments in higher education generally.