TEACHER AUTONOMY - MEANING, NEED AND PROBLEMS IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT

take decisions for one’s own interests. Out of the several kinds of autonomy and the variation of its
meaning and interpretation evident in the related literature, discussed indetail ,the focus of the paper
is on teacher autonomy that refers to the ability of the teachers to take decisions pertaining to teaching
and learning. Teacher autonomy is the professional autonomy of teachers that endows them to decide
and plan the curriculum i.ethe course, syllabus, methods, books and study material, evaluation
procedures etc for their students and do what they think is the best for them without any external or
administrative interference. It necessitates trust on the capabilities of teachers in understanding the
real problems of students since it is only them who have consistent and close interaction with the
students and have specialised training into teaching , which many policymakers and administrators
often lack and unfortunately seem disconnected with the ground reality. Teacher autonomy also refers
to the freedom of teachers in conducting research to solve immediate problems of classrooms(action
research) and publish the results and also feel free to share their experiences to all stakeholders.
Autonomy has been also often been linked to creativity by many educationists who say that teaching
is an art and what is art without having to innovate and act freely without constraints of any kind?
Many researches, as have been discussed in the paper reveal how teacher autonomy is linked with
having happier, stress-free and motivated teachers and less number of teacher burnout and drop-outs.
Some longitudinal studies discussedin the paper have also reported that teacher autonomy is linked
with student achievement and as seen over the years, more autonomous teachers have produced more
number of students with higher achievement. Some findings also imply that the countries with less
autonomy of teachers have lower levels of student achievement and vice-versa. The discussion of the
importance of teacher autonomy with respect to the Indian education system in the paper takes us back
to the Vedic system of Gurukuls where the teacher was not only a very respected and trusted upon
individual, he was also the utmost and an autonomous authority with no external interference even
from the rulers of those times. The paper discusses the barriers to teacher autonomy leading to a rigid
, controlled and structured patterns of curriculum planning at all levels and lists theplausible reasonsfor less participation of the teachers in academic planning.It also attempts to provide withsome
solutions for creating a more autonomous environment for teachers such as more collaboration and
involvement of teachers with other stakeholders of education in curriculum planning and decision
making , andcreating better feedback systems, with the hope that they would lead toa more trusting
and supportive environment so thatteacher autonomy can be protected and cherished in its true sense