Authoritarian school: A nurturing place for autocracy

A school is said to be a transitional place for inculcating basic values of human living across generations besides a place for learning academic disciplines. Children enter the school with a diversity of attitudes and behaviour patterns that are the outcome of their domestic environment. School is a place where attitudes and behaviour patterns of tender minds are shaped according to the needs of society. School teacher is the agent of the society in relation to other role performers in education to pursue this task. For that he and other role performers should be in the possession of desirable values. Numerous reports and studies have highlighted the authoritarian attitude of school teachers and other role performers in school education system. This paper is based on a preliminary study to investigate the prevalence of undesirable attitudes and behaviour patterns among various role performers in school educational system with particular reference to school teachers in an Indian state of Punjab. A comparative prevalence of undesirable behaviour among male female teachers is also depicted in the paper. Reasons for prevalence of undesirable behaviour also form the part of the paper.