Official Publication of Direct Research Journal of Education and Vocational Studies: Vol. 4, 2022, ISSN 2734-2174 Direct Research Journal of Education and Vocational Studies Vol. 4(1), Pp. 89-101 March 2022 ISSN 2734-2174 DOI: https://doi.org/10.26765/DRJEVS660817429 Article Number: DRJEVS660817429 Copyright © 2022 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0. http://directresearchpublisher.org/drjevs Full Length Research Paper Determinants of Status of the Teaching Profession: A case of Ukerewe District in Tanzania Issa Yusuph* and Demetria Gerold Mkulu Department of Educational Foundation, St. Augustine University of Tanzania. Corresponding Author E-mail: yusuphissa640@gmail.com Received 7 March 2022; Accepted 25 March 2022; Published 30 March 2022 ABSTRACT: The study's main focus was on the factors that influence teaching profession status. The main goal of this research was to find out how much teachers' status has influenced their teaching careers. The study's goals were to (i) look into how much teachers' discipline, (ii) remuneration, and (iii) working conditions affect the status of teachers and the teaching profession. The study used identical status theory, which included both quantitative and qualitative research methods. 138 respondents were chosen from 8 secondary schools and included teachers, students, school board members, heads of schools, and district officers. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, and focus group discussions, and the findings revealed that teaching has lost its glory as well as attractiveness to young graduates. Even students who are in a position to choose a career do not like teaching, or they choose it as an alternative profession after other priorities fail, because teachers' lifestyles do not reflect the honor and dignity of the profession, and thus most of the students do not choose teaching. Poor working conditions and a lack of motivation for teachers reduce worker morale, increase teacher turnover, and lower the status of the teaching profession. According to the study, there is a need for close mentorship toward junior teachers on professional dress, acting, and socialization with his or her society. This may aid in progressing through the stages of teacher development, which are survival, consolidation, renewal, and maturity. Keywords; Professionalism, disruptive behaviors, teacher - professional status relationship and working environment INTRODUCTION Researchers, educators, and other educational stakeholders argue that, one of the best career (noblest of all professions) and seemed as the mother of all career is the teaching profession. Socrate said that “A teacher is a midwife”. In this regard, therefore teaching profession is responsible for guiding people, shape intellectual, character and attitude of an individual as well as the whole society. Historically, the teaching profession was the most valued profession rather than any profession in society. According to Ishumi, (2013, p. 89) Teaching is among the five oldest and historically character-shaping professions in the world ever seen. Moreover, teaching is one of the oldest professionalized vocations, dating back to the fourth century BC, associated with a first formal school (in the Western world) that was opened in 387 BC by the Greek aristocrat and thinker Plato, in the Academy gardens of the city of Athens. That is to say that every public service provider in the political service of Plato’s Republic are the product of the teachers. Also Ishumi, (2013, p.92) insist that a “first teacher training centre was in the Western society for classroom instructors (teacher- trainees) is traced back to a “teaching seminary” established in the 17 th century in Germany, which was immediately thereafter adopted by Napoleon in France in 1684 but was termed Ecole Normale, Gold Coast/Ghana in 1815, Kenya at Mombasa, (in 1848) and subsequently Tanzania in Zanzibar (in 1866). This is also supported by Stromquist, (2018. p. 13) that,