Modern teacher: image of the profession

The weekly bulletin of sociological reports of the Public Opinion Foundation dated October 9, 2008 presents the views of Russians on the status and role of the teacher, and assesses the situation in school education. The sociologists' conclusions are based on an analysis of the results of sociological surveys in 2001-2008, in which Russians expressed their opinion about the level of school education and the competence of school teachers.

It is noted, in particular, that thanks to the national project “Education” the impression in Russian society is growing that the state pays enough attention to school problems. If in 2001 and 2004 this opinion was shared by one out of every ten respondents, in the summer of 2006, during the period of active work of the project, - 17%, then, according to the latest survey, the number of respondents “responsive” to government efforts today is 29%. At the same time, the opposite opinion is finding less and less support - that the state is not paying enough attention to schools. If in the first measurements (2001 and 2004) this point of view was shared by 82-83% of respondents, then in the summer of 2006 it was expressed in the answers of 65% of respondents, and today it is shared by 55% of respondents.

Certain changes have also occurred in assessments of the state of affairs in Russian schools. Thus, at the start of the national project, at the beginning of 2006, 36% spoke about the deplorable state of affairs in secondary education; 10% of respondents rated it “good.” Today, the opinion of Russians has changed somewhat towards the positive; every fourth respondent (26%) believes that the situation with school education is still bad, and 18% think that it is good. However, today, like two and a half years ago, the answers “satisfactory” prevail (41 and 37%, respectively).

Almost nothing has changed in assessments of the quality of work of school teachers. Most often it is rated “satisfactory” (42% today, 45% three years ago). “Good” and “excellent” ratings are given by a total of 29% of respondents (three years ago - 33%), “bad” and “very bad” - by 12% (in October 2005 - 8%); 17% found it difficult to assess how teachers cope with their responsibilities.

Answering the open question “Why do teachers today cope poorly with their responsibilities?”, respondents talked about the low professional level of today’s teachers (“uneducated teachers”; “if a Russian language teacher writes with errors, then what can we talk about?”; “because they in turn, they taught poorly - and they cannot teach anything"); about their lack of a true calling and “indifferent attitude towards children and work”; that “like everyone else, teachers are bought and sold” and “they think only about money” (3% in each case). Some respondents focused on the low salaries of school employees, the decline in teacher authority, and other circumstances.

There have been no major changes in the answers to questions that directly or indirectly reflect the attractiveness of the teaching profession in the eyes of today’s Russian society. Thus, every second Russian believes that the teaching profession is not respected, and although more than two years ago this was said somewhat more often (55%), the decrease in the share of such answers does not go beyond the statistical error. The dynamics of positive responses are interpreted similarly: two years ago, the authority of the teaching profession was recognized by 33%, today - 39% of our fellow citizens. Based on these data, FOM sociologists speak only of a weakly expressed tendency to increase the prestige of the teaching profession, but nothing more.

As for the attractiveness of the teaching profession in material terms, the majority of respondents assess it at an average level: according to 69% of respondents, teachers in general live no better and no worse than the majority of Russians. Polar ideas (“better” and “worse”) were expressed less frequently (in 9 and 15% of cases, respectively). It is noted that it was in this issue that dynamics emerged that cannot be included within the boundaries of statistical error. Thus, the share of people who consider teachers as a financially disadvantaged category of the Russian population has decreased by 11% since July 2006, and the share of those who believe that the financial situation of a teacher corresponds to the Russian average has increased by 15%.

If we talk about the authority of a teacher not in a general social sense, but in a “narrow educational context” - from the point of view of realizing his pedagogical mission - then the survey data suggests that in general it is not high. Only a quarter of respondents (27%) believe that today's Russian teacher has a significant influence on the views of children (rural residents think so more often than others - 35%). A third of respondents (33%) believe that this influence is insignificant, and approximately one in five (18%) generally denies teachers such influence.

Based on an article by Irina Shmerlina , Public Opinion Foundation

http://bd.fom.ru/report/map/projects/dominant/dom0840/d084022