Needs Assessment of University Teachers for Professional Enhancement

The purpose of the Study was to explore the training needs for university teaching staff. The sample comprised of randomly selected twenty percent teaching staff of ten selected universities, degree-awarding institutions from public sector and forty percent teaching staff of ten selected universities from the private sector. A self developed Questionnaire consisting of forty-one items to be responded on five-point Likert scale and two open-ended questions were used to collect data. The analysis of the data revealed that university teachers need the training in the following areas: Philosophy of Education, Islamic Philosophy of Education, Educational psychology, Research techniques, Professional trends Professional competencies, Professional attitude, Professional Ethics, Global innovations in teaching strategies, Classroom Management, Counselling and Guidance, Student discipline, Communication skills, Learning Theories and Supervision. So it is recommended that the areas mentioned above may be included in the training curriculum of university teachers.


Introduction
Since the establishment of the country in 1947, little attention has ever been paid to develop the capability of the people in Pakistan (Ahmad, 2010).The neglect of human resources development has lead to the non-utilization or under-utilization of material resources of the country.Only an educated and a skilled population will be able to solve the multitude of economic problems being faced by the country at present.Education is a process to give intellectual, moral, and social instruction especially as a formal prolonged process, which includes training, or instruction for a particular purpose (Anjum, 1998).Teachers represent the ideals and aspirations of the nation and owe to it the moral and mental accountability of equipping the youth for active participation in the high enterprise of creating a social order, which shall dispense equal justice to all and sundry (Kakkar, 1996).Higher Education enhances social, cultural and economic development, active citizenship and ethical values.Institutions of higher education have the main responsibility for equipping individuals with advanced knowledge and skills required for positions of responsibility in government, business, and the professions (Isani and Virk, 2004).The training of high level scientific manpower is a matter of vital national concern in every country.The development of higher education is thus connected to economic development (Sheikh, 1998).A country's social and economic development depends on the nature and level of higher education.The claim of McGill (1992) that "in the developed countries the role of higher education in production of high quality human capital is quite evident" is valid and reliable.The role of the university in a developing country must be to educate its people and produce scholars who in return should be able to contribute to the overall human development (Wickrama, 1996).
The teacher must have not only a mastery of the content and curriculum, an appreciation of the various forms of standards, an awareness of assessment, and the ability to organize the lessons, but also be able to engage students--to know them well enough to make appropriate instructional decisions.It is through pedagogy, the science of teaching, that the skilful teacher ties these elements together.The ways in which a teacher interacts with students and organizes instruction are critically important aspects of helping each child learn (Tharp, 1999;Tharp et al, 2003).
The success of reforms in an educational institution depends upon the quality of teacher, which in turn depends to a great extent on the quality of teacher education.Staff development aims at building and promoting an effective personality through learning and trait strengthening programmes.It includes development of skill oriented vision, mental poise, unbiased perception, vigilance, drive, communication skills, team building, competence in decision making and problem solving capabilities, honesty etc, and the art of encouraging as well as tolerating different viewpoints, including dissent in the staff (Sisodia, 2000).
The quality of higher education largely depends upon the quality of staff in higher educational institutions.The role of staff is pivotal for the achievement of goals of an institution or an organization.A high quality and well-motivated teaching staff is essential in building the excellence in education.Staff development is the sum of activities that enhance the knowledge, skills, performance, vision and understanding of the staff.In educational institutions staff development programme improves the communication skills, classroom behaviour, teaching methods and thinking of the teacher.The purpose of staff development is to promote the quality of pupil's learning by different teaching strategies.
The success of many innovations depends heavily upon the skills of teachers.As far as Pakistan is concerned, there was no systematic effort, in the past to gear up the training of university teaching staff.Certain programmes at Federal and provincial level were started but very soon were shut down due to different constraints.So it was the need of time to conduct an analytical survey in this regard.The main objectives of this study were: i.
To explore the training needs for university teaching staff.
ii.To identify the areas in which development is needed by the teaching staff of the universities in Pakistan.
iii.Formulation of recommendations for staff development in Pakistan to improve education at higher level.

Research Methodology
The main focus of this study was on "training needs assessment for university teachers".The study was descriptive/survey type.The following procedure was adopted for study.

Population
Population of the study comprised of University teachers, who were readily involved in teaching process in public and private universities.

Sample
The sample consisted of 830 university teachers.There are more than hundred universities in public and private sector in Pakistan.It was very difficult for the researcher to visit each university of Pakistan.Hence twenty universities i-e ten form public sector and ten from private sector were randomly selected and included in the sample.Twenty percent of the teaching staff of public universities and forty percent staff of the private universities were taken for study

Research Instrument
A self developed Questionnaire consisting of forty-one items to be responded on five-point Likert scale and two open-ended questions were used to collect data.After going through the related literature, consisting of books, official documents, reports, plans and conference proceedings the researcher prepared questionnaire for data collection.Before the collection of data at large scale the questionnaire was pilot tested.For the pilot testing four universities were taken.The researcher personally visited and administered relevant questionnaires among 60 teachers.They were requested to give their suggestions freely for the improvement of the questionnaire.They were requested to amend the questions, in format and language to make the questions simple and understandable.Accordingly questionnaire was revised by incorporating their suggestions.Then the final version of questionnaire was developed.

Data Collection
The data collection stage was very difficult for the researcher.He had to visit most of the sample universities again and again.The researcher distributed questionnaire to 830 respondents but the researcher was able to get response from 800 respondents.

Results
This

Recommendations
1. Staff development is primarily concerned with the identification, formation and enhancement of skills.
Professional training is essential for staff of higher education institutions.Training provides knowledge and skills needed to do a particular task, and also change the attitude in favour of their performance.So it is recommended that training program must be declared compulsory for the teaching staff of higher education institutions.
2. It has been proved in the study that the teachers of higher education were deficient in the fields of Philosophy of Education, Islamic Philosophy of Education, Educational psychology, Research techniques, Professional trend, Professional competencies, Professional attitude, Professional Ethics, Global innovations in teaching strategies, Classroom Management, Counselling and Guidance, Student discipline, Communication skills, Learning Theories and Supervision.So it is recommended that all of the above mentioned areas must be covered.
3. Institutions play vital role in the grooming of individuals, and the practical things are very essential for the performance of the daily institutional work.The study showed that preparation of instructional material, lesson planning, use of audio visual aids and the development of time table are the desired areas, where the university teachers need effective training.
4. Test formation, preparation of question papers, marking of tests, interpretation of results and feedback based on evaluation are the areas which are not given importance at university level.But it is very important to develop expertise in these areas.Training workshops should be arranged in this regard.

5.
Computer is a great need of time, without computer knowledge one cannot survive in the field of higher education but most of teaching staff at higher education level do not know even basics of computer.So it is recommended that there should be a compulsory training in M.S word, Excel, power point and internet usage to make the staff compatible with the modern word.
6.The funds are like blood to run the institution.How to use them legally and properly, how to make budgets These are the areas which demand training, so it is recommended that a comprehensive training should be arranged to familiarize the higher education teaching staff with financial matters.

Table 1 .
Need of Training (percentage frequencies to the nearest whole number)

Table 2 .
Identified Fields of Training (percentage frequencies to the nearest whole number)

Table 3 .
Training in Instructional Development (percentage frequencies to the nearest whole number)

Table 4 .
Training in Test Construction (percentage frequencies to the nearest whole number)

Table 5 .
Training in Computer usage (percentage frequencies to the nearest whole number)

Table 6 .
Financial Matters (percentage frequencies to the nearest whole number)