Inadequate Support for Professional Development of Teachers and Common Good

Running head: ESSAY
'Inadequate support for the professional development of teachers'
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1ESSAY
Common good refers to the principle of common benefits and welfare for all the
members of the society. As stated by Garvey (2012), common good is a principle in the
philosophy that includes the agenda of sharing and delivering benefit to almost all the members
of a community. It can also be defined as something that is achieved through collective action
and active participation by all the members of a society through public service or politics. The
public or social services are often aimed at achieving common good. In this regard, it can be said
that education is a social service and the teachers work for accomplishing common good for the
society. This essay will critically analyze the concept of common good in the social issue of
‘inadequate support for the professional development of teachers’, especially in the context of
the 10 Catholic Social Teaching (CST) principles, with a focus on the human dignity and will
provide recommendations to address this challenge.
Inadequate support for the professional development of teachers is a global issue, in
which the shared responsibility of common good is not being realized. As the economies and the
societies are getting developed quite rapidly, the education system is also evolving quite fast.
Hence, the teachers must be skilled and trained enough to prepare the next generation of students
to take on the challenges of life. Education is not only limited to the bookish knowledge but also
aids in learning various aspects of life, manners and attitudes, which helps an individual to live in
a society and contribute something for the benefit of all, which can be termed as the common
good, according to the 10 CST principles (Westheimer, 2015). The teachers are a great pillar in
the society in educating the youth about doing good for the neighbors and for the community by
going beyond their individual dimensions. However, the teachers need professional training and
development to be updated and in sync with the changes in the world and train and educate their
students accordingly. In many cases, the teachers do not get such support from the higher

2ESSAY
authorities and hence, lack the skills and knowledge about the latest trends and developments in
the modern world. There is also lack of infrastructures and modern equipment, funding, libraries,
and presence of rigid education systems, that cripples the liberty of the teachers to teach the
students in creative manner (Collopy, Bowman & Taylor, 2013). The consequences are faced by
the young generation of the society, who do not get the adequate education for contributing
something good in the society and hence, this results in the wastages of human resources. This
also does not fulfill the shared responsibility of common good.
Dignity of the humans is the foundation of all the Catholic social teaching. It believes
that an individual reflects the image of God and hence, dignity of an individual must be achieved
as a basic moral vision of the community (McKenna, 2013). The individuals must be served well
as God is served. As highlighted by Sison & Fontrodona (2013), the basis of common good lies
in the principle of providing human dignity. The teachers do a social service by providing dignity
to the youth of the society and fulfill the CST principles of rights and responsibilities and global
solidarity and development, and in return they also hold a dignified position. However, it can be
stated that if they cannot give proper education to the students due to lack of knowledge and
skills, then they lose their dignified positions. Thus, human dignity is hurt, followed by
nonfulfillment of the principles of common good, rights and responsibilities, economic justice
and global solidarity and development as the human resources of the communities are not
developed.
This issue is not only a local challenge, but also a global challenge, and measures must
be taken to address this. The lack of professional supports for the teachers is mostly prevalent in
the developing and poor economies, where there is lack of adequate capital to support the
educational infrastructure (McGrath, 2012). Hence, economic condition, especially equality of