HRM in teacher training

Introduction

The current corporate world has put a lot of emphasis on Human Resource Management (HRM) and Total Quality Management (TQM) so that all the resources in the organization can be fully utilized. Managers try as much as possible to organize their human resources so that they can be competent and bring development and enhanced performance in the organization. A good Human Resource Management in any organization will ensure enhanced TQM which in the end will provide more productivity and efficiency within the organization while at the same time providing employees with satisfaction (Briscoe & Schuler, 2001). Satisfied employees are bound to work hard to steer the organization into greater success.

Teaching profession in Pakistan is not a job that is high paying compared to other professions such as medicine and engineering (YesPakistan.com Staff writer, n.d). However, it is still among the coveted professions which need a lot of motivation and improved training to bring to board the most qualified professionals that can steer the education sector to higher levels. The number of those who joins the teacher trainings is still high in Pakistan, showing how the profession is important, despite the many problems experienced in the trainings. It is important to note that a well trained teacher provides a good education for the students in the end.

Training helps to impart the teacher with the important subject matter that is supposed to be passed to the students. Well trained teachers plays a significant role in helping the students stay in school as well as encouraging them to learn.  Looking at the quality of education at any place, it is directly proportional to the standard of the teacher training.

Pakistan is among the developing countries that have been rated as having low literacy rate.  There are many factors that have been attributed to this, but one of the major important factors is the performance of teachers in the institutions of learning. There is no single Pakistan University that is ranked among the top universities in the world, which is a worrying trend. The government has been involved in ensuring that the universities put the best human resource practices that could enhance better performance in the universities.

Many countries have dreamt of having a stable economic development in the entire 21st century (Budhwar & Debrah, 2001).  The common thing that has been widely accepted about development is that it goes through quality education and research. Therefore, it is important to give the youths a better training that will make them sustainable citizens of tomorrow.  Developments can be found when the education system especially in secondary and university levels is tremendously changed to suit the development objectives.

Improving Teacher Effectiveness in Higher Education Institutions in Pakistan

            A country can only receive quality education if it has got quality teachers.  This is the reason that in most countries, the national budget has a high percentage that represents investment on teachers. This has not been an exceptional to Pakistan’s government. The Pakistan government has taken a step to attract the best teachers as well as putting down policies that will encourage initial training and giving support to the teaching professionals. Pakistan among other developing countries has been affected by the cases of HIV/Aids among the teachers and their migration to other countries where the terms of payment are better than in Pakistan (Malik, 2003). Apart from the Pakistan’s public university teachers going into other countries for better pay, they abandon their jobs for other public or private jobs within the country. This can be mostly attributed to lack of job satisfaction.

            In any organization, all the aspects are highly affected by the quality of management. However, it has to be understood that in the process, the heart of everything lies with the employees. Staffs that are competent, committed and motivated can provide the best quality that the organization can have. To achieve quality objectives within the organization, the management needs to put consideration in human resource management (Doherty & Horne, 2002). Human resource management can be used vey well to implement the program objectives of the organization. Universities in Pakistan plays a very important role in enhancing education for all other sectors in the economy , therefore , it has emerged to be very important to enhance the productivity of these universities using human resource. Human resource managers have to ensure that their employees are committed to the organization so that they can bring about favorable outcomes. This is the same to the higher education managers who needs to make sure that their teachers are committed to the institution in order to bring out the best trainees from their faculties. It is thus important for the institutions to foster for commitment among its staff in the universities to ensure less rate of turnover, increase performance, and reduce such cases as absenteeism. The teachers who are committed to the institutions will more probably put in more effort in class room compared to those who are less committed.  If the teachers are committed with their work, it will generally affect the level of education in the class, which its effect will trickle down to the country’s economy.

            If the institution is not able to curb the rate of turnover of teachers, the good teachers might leave with their teaching, research skills and the experience. This is costly to the institution as it means new recruitment and trainings for the new faculty members. If the faculty managers can be able to prevent brain drain, then many of the costs could be prevented (Smith & Debrah, 2002).

            Due to the problems experienced by the turnover of the teachers in the universities in Pakistan, the universities have taken up the issue of commitment to be of imperative importance.  The Higher Education Commission of Pakistan has taken the initiative to evaluate the standards of the universities and how they are performing by looking at the faculty possession of the Ph.D.s and the number of foreign Degrees available within that faculty.  The private universities in Pakistan have increased the demand for teachers who have got good talents, and giving them a very good compensation.  This has posed a big challenge to the public universities which needs to work hard to retain its staff. Therefore, the university management is forced to look for options of retaining their best staff as well as attracting some more. It is worthy to note that even if the teachers are well paid but they do not seem to be committed to the university, they can not bring about much success to the organization. Therefore, it is very important that the university’s management should foster commitment (Chalmers, Scott & Gough, 2003).

            Education is considered to be vital in solving many problems in the society, be it political, social or economic problems. It is through quality education that these problems can be solved. Quality education on the other hand depends on the quality of teachers. If the teachers are well trained, then the students that have to be trained by such teachers will also be of quality production (Vegas, 2007).  This is the reason why the government and the higher institutions of learning have put in effort to ensure that the teachers receive good training in developing the skills that will enhance quality education. The situation has however not been so much easy to attain as there are many negative trends that are experienced. Hence, it calls for the continuous assessment of the teacher’s quality in the education sector.

            There is need to have qualification standards for the teachers which the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan has ensured  that it is in place so that the overall education standards are improved. This will help in making sure that quality teachers are maintained while at the same time faith will be restored in the teaching sector, brining about development in the whole education industry.  The teaching career is a very challenging task and thus requires the teachers to use the best strategies and practices to overcome the challenges. The teachers must be taught how to set goals and the means of achieving the set goals, and be able to measure if they have actually attained the goals or not, and if not, which step should be taken. Pakistan needs to have well trained teachers to help in making the necessary changes in the entire education system, and this responsibility can be well undertaken in the institutions of higher learning.  The institutions are hence mandated with ensuring that the teachers are well equipped with the teaching skills and should have a positive attitude towards their profession.

            In a business organization, the employees are the ones who are in direct contact with the clients. Therefore, for the organization to succeed, the employees must be able to satisfy the clients so that when the clients feel that they have received value for their money, they will have faith in that organization thus continue using the services or obtain goods from the same organization. Hence, the management has to ensure that the employees play a significant role in maintaining the image of the organization. In the same way, since the teachers in the universities and other institutions of learning are in constant contact with the students more than the administrators, the teachers should be trained on how to handle their relationship with the students and especially in cases of for instance conflict resolution (Shahzad, Bashir & Ramay 2008).

            Teachers are expected to manage the students’ behavior while in class in a professional way.  A class room contains students from different backgrounds; hence if the teacher does not have the managerial skills of dealing with the cases of indiscipline in class, then it will lead to having a bad image of the institution. The primary goal of teachers is to offer education to the students, but since they have to deal with various groups with different backgrounds, then the teachers must be equipped with methods of fighting indiscipline cases in their classes while at the same time maintaining the good image of the institution by acting professionally. This will enhance development   of the education in the institution and the country as a whole.  There are some conflict resolutions that can be undertaken by teachers hence causing skepticism on its benefit, but if teachers are well equipped in conflict resolution, then such cases might not occur. There is a correlation that exists between conflict resolution trainings and how the teachers can manage the class rooms appropriately.

            In every aspect of the education, not only in Pakistan, but all over the world, teachers are the cornerstone of the education system.  It is not possible to have good institutes of education if we do not have good teachers. It thus implies that quality education cannot be achieved if there are no quality teachers (Inayatullah & Gidley, 2000). That is why as the main stakeholder in the education system, the government must ensure that the quality of teachers is improved so that there can be improvement in the general education system.  There is no any organization that can prosper if its employees are not well equipped and prepared to steer it to success. Therefore, the government and all the other stakeholders should be prepared to bring more human resource management face in the education sector of the higher institutes of learning so as to have quality education in the entire education sector.

            Teachers who are well trained and qualified need to be given certain certification so that they are branded as being effective teachers. This plays a very significant role in enabling teachers to work effectively knowing that their effort is recognized and appreciated (Halpern, 1997). The system of certification has been successfully applied in some countries like China; hence what has been successful in one country can be applied very well in other places.  Educational personnel’s in china have been trained and encouraged to undertake more practical work. For instance, a teacher is allowed to bring a person from outside the school to talk or teach the students about a certain topics or issues (Belton & Fleisher 1997).

            Trained teachers play a significant part in providing quality education and research.  Teacher’s training can be provided in three parts. First is Pre-service training in which a teacher is taken through the university’s traditions, learns and conceptualizes the mission and vision of the institution. At this level, the teacher is also trained on the teaching methods, strategies for carrying out assessments and undertaking quality measures.  This training helps the teachers to have basic skills for teaching. The teacher is able to develop such skills as problem solving, be able to develop team work and finally be innovative in their work.  Secondly, the subject specific training in which the trainee is taken through the faculty programs, what is expected by the faculty, as well as looking at the challenges that might be faced in the faculty. This second training is important in enabling the teacher to have skills that are related to teaching. This means quality training will enable the teacher to develop multiple skills for carrying out the job. Finally, the third training is the in-service training which incorporates in-depth teaching skills. This training is important in developing change of attitude among the teachers, which is an important aspect in organizational development (Jadoon & Jabeen, n.d). Training of teachers keeps them on the mark in their discipline and acquires sharp teaching and research techniques. A trained teacher is usually taught to carry out a proper planning so as to attain the objectives.  The human resource in the education system requires that the teachers should have versatile skills and competence in carrying out their work so that they can achieve effective work (Perraton, 1993).

            Organizations that are driven by quality must reflect it in its business plan. This is mostly reflected in the mission, vision, and how this are supposed to be achieved.  Quality driven organizations knows that human resource is very important for continuous improvement. The organization will hence try to ensure that it looks for ways of improving and managing the human resources. Therefore, training and development of the teaching staff of the universities in Pakistan does exhibit alignment of strategic plans and ensures improved quality is maintained. Teacher training should thus be viewed as a strategy by the university management, rather than being taken occasional as any other event.

            In the public universities in Pakistan, the issue of training and development has not been given much attention for a long time. Most of the teachers in the university have not had a formal training rather than learning through experience. The teaching staffs have had the opportunity to develop their careers through doctoral studies. Due to this problem, Punjab University was able to try and rectify it by introducing Human Resource Development Center in 2001, (Jadoon & Jabeen, n.d).  The Higher Education Commission of Pakistan took up the initiative to fund the Human Resource Development Center of Punjab University, since it realized the important role the center can play in quality assurance.  Along training and development, performance appraisal is very important in human resource. The universities need to undertake appraisals for their teaching staff and give them feed back. This might also act as a motivation for the staff to see how they have been performing and where they need to improve either through training or further research. Feedback from the students is also an important appraisal which can help the teachers to develop their careers further.

Conclusion

            Many of the Pakistan universities have not had a well established training and development program and the general application of HR practices for its teaching staff. However, the initiative that was taken by the Punjab University was a first important step that opened the door for higher education institutions to take up the responsibility of training and the developing its staff to be able to attain the objectives of the organization easily. The involvement of the Higher Education Commission to fund for the program has also been a great boost to seeing the improvement of the education sector in Pakistan.  The universities need to change their bureaucratic systems to ensure complete development of the program of HRM in the universities.  One place that the training has to focus so much is changing the attitude of teachers. This is a slow process which needs intervention for it to develop. This will ensure a complete HRM application in the university system.

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