Social and Material Status of Teachers from The Perspective of Teacher Education Students

Abstract

The social status and position of teachers has changed throughout history and is conditioned by thedevelopment of human society. In the developed world, the teacher is a highly positioned member ofsociety, part of the intellectual elite and a positive model of behavior. We are witnesses that the periodof media development, the inflow of information, the collapse of previous value systems, led to a changein the evaluation and position of teachers in Serbia and the surrounding countries. Teachers areexperiencing one of the most difficult periods. They are usually poorly paid, insufficiently valued,unmotivated. The paper describes positive examples of the attitude of social systems in the world towardsteachers, where teachers are still part of the elite and where, thanks to a positive and encouraging attitudetowards educators, societies experience prosperity in economic, cultural, material and other aspects ofdevelopment. In this way, the assumption is confirmed that a society that invests in education andteaching staff, is profitable in the long run and has positive results in development. Also, the paperpresents the results of research conducted by surveying students of the Teacher Education Faculty inBelgrade, in which we wanted to find out the attitudes, motives and views of students about the positionof teachers in society, and the projections of their future occupation. The results of the research showthat students are motivated to work as teachers and that they like working with children and youngpeople, but at the same time they are aware of the unfavorable position of teachers in society and hopethat this position can be improved by raising to make the public aware of the importance of teaching atthe earliest age of students and stricter criteria when enrolling and selecting future teachers at facultiesand schools.