Vol. 3, Issue 8, Part J (2017)

Abstract
Teaching is a very respectable profession but even then not all the teachers who are in this pious profession like it. They are disinterested towards teaching profession. Hence we must be very careful at the time of admission of prospective teachers and should select those individuals for training who adopt this profession as their best choice; taking it as a challenge and not as a last resort after losing in other fields of life. They must possess high level of teaching aptitude and favourable attitude towards teaching profession besides personal qualities like grooming personality, psychological information concerning child growth and development, good physical and mental health etc. The present study investigates the teaching aptitude and attitudes of prospective- primary school teachers towards teaching profession in relation to their gender, type of institution and stream of study. A sample of 640 prospective primary school teachers, 320 from private and 320 from government institutions (DIET) of junior basic teacher training colleges of Himachal Pradesh was taken through random sampling method. “Teaching Aptitude Test Battery” by Dr. R.P. Sharma and S.N. Sharma and “Attitude towards teaching profession scale” by Umme kulsum were used to collect the data. Mean, S.D, and ANOVA were used for the analysis of the data. Research findings revealed that there was a significant difference in the teaching aptitude of male and female prospective primary school teachers. Also, there was a significant difference in the teaching aptitude of prospective primary school teachers studying in government (DIET) and private institutions. The study also found that there was significant difference in the attitudes of male/female, and arts/science stream prospective primary school teachers towards teaching profession.