Education seeks to develop the innate capacities of the individuals. It is a potential tool for creating awareness among people and enabling them to lead a happy and peaceful life. It cultivates social, moral and spiritual values among individuals. Spiritual intelligence is often described as the ability to access deeper meanings, values and purposes in life; and to apply these insights in a wise and compassionate way. It is associated with the inner life of people. It helps to connect the ‘self’ with ‘spirit’. Several research studies revealed that teachers’ knowledge of spiritual intelligence influences their teaching effectiveness. The purpose of the present study is to explore teachers’ perceptions on spiritual intelligence in relation to teacher effectiveness in secondary schools. The study focuses on the influence of six variables – gender, professional qualification, teaching experience, school management, type of family and religion on teachers’ perceptions towards spiritual intelligence and teacher effectiveness; and to examine the relationship between spiritual intelligence and teacher effectiveness. Descriptive survey method was adopted for the present investigation. The data were collected from 300 secondary school teachers (50 Headmasters and 250 School Assistants) working in 50 selected secondary schools from Visakhapatnam District of Andhra Pradesh through Stratified Random sampling technique. The data were analyzed using differential and inferential statistics. The findings of the study revealed that Gender, professional qualification, type of family and religion have no influence on the perceptions of teachers towards Spiritual Intelligence as well as teacher effectiveness. However, ‘teaching experience’ and ‘school management’ have a positive significant influence on teachers’ perceptions towards spiritual intelligence and teacher effectiveness. The results showed a significant positive relationship between spiritual intelligence and teacher effectiveness among secondary school teachers.

Spiritual intelligence, teacher effectiveness, purpose of life, soul, transcendent