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

The social status and position of teachers have changed throughout history and is conditioned by the development of human society. In the developed world, the teacher is a highly positioned member of society, part of the intellectual elite, and a positive model of behavior. We are witnesses that the period of media development, the inflow of information, the collapse of previous value systems, led to a change in 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 towards teachers, where teachers are still part of the elite and where, thanks to a positive and encouraging attitude towards educators, societies experience prosperity in economic, cultural, material, and other aspects of development. In this way, the assumption is confirmed that a society that invests in education and teaching staff, is profitable in the long run and has positive results in development. Also, the paper presents 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 position of teachers in society, and the projections of their future occupation. The results of the research show that students are motivated to work as teachers and that they like working with children and young people, but at the same time, they are aware of the unfavorable position of teachers in society and hope that this position can be improved by raising to make the public aware of the importance of teaching at the earliest age of students and stricter criteria when enrolling and selecting future teachers at faculties and schools.