Attitudes of High School Students Towards the Teaching Profession in Iraqi Kurdistan
Suleyman CELIK

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to describe the factors those influence the high school students’ teaching profession career choices and to explore their attitudes, beliefs and opinions towards teaching profession in Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). A mixed-methods approach was applied through the use of a hand out questionnaire survey contained closed ended questions to describe the factors that affect high school students’ career choice among 1989 high school students, of which 56 percent (n=1113) female and, 44 percent (n=876) were male students, in 103, public and 22 private schools, followed by a semi structured interviews with the 12 focused group to explore their perceptions, opinions and attitudes towards teaching profession as a career. Theage range of the respondents was between 16-18 years. The participants were from all over the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and mostly they were from middle and low-socio economic status families. This mixed method study lasted for 6 months during the 2016-2017 academic year. It was significantly found that the majority of the participants do not believe that teaching is an attractive job in regards to social status of teaching, salary, stress that comes with the overloaded work, and the fact that teachers and society do not encourage students to be a teacher. Besides, the participants, who believe that teaching career is not satisfactory, agreed that teaching is a sacred profession. High school students’ perception towards teaching profession as a career in the Middle East countries remains a relatively unexplored area within existing literature. This study reveals new insights into the career choices of high school students, who are surrounded between the need and expectation of the education field for quality and the pressure of the society for a status.

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