Those Who Can, Teach

Those who can, teach. This is a memorable slogan seen on London billboards some years back. The idea is that not everyone can teach. It takes something special to be a teacher, who is responsible for moulding the future of children.

Today (October 5), we honour and celebrate these guardians of our collective future. World Teachers’ Day is an occasion to remind ourselves of the selfless service rendered by those who engage in this most noble profession. Although we should be bearing in mind their contribution to make us what we are today every day, having a special day helps the society to focus on what more should be done to recognize and reward teachers.

One and a half years into the COVID-19 crisis, the 2021 World Teachers’ Day will focus on the support teachers need to fully contribute to the recovery process under the theme “Teachers at the heart of education recovery”. Schools in many countries including Sri Lanka remain closed, robbing the children of education and associated opportunities. Online education per se can never replace in-person teaching and learning.

The declared aims of the World Teachers’ Day are celebrating the teaching profession and improving international standards for the profession, mobilising support for teachers and ensuring that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers. Our teachers unions should give up the online teaching strike and get back to work for the sake of the future of our children.

One of the main challenges to the right of education is the continued shortage of teachers. There are an estimated 264 million children still out of school globally, and according to UNESCO, the world needs to recruit almost 69 million new teachers to reach the 2030 education goal of universal primary and secondary education. This ‘teacher gap’ is more pronounced among vulnerable populations – girls, children with disabilities, refugee and migrant children, and poor children living in rural or remote areas. UNESCO estimates that to achieve the goal of universal primary education by 2022 all countries will need to recruit over 13 million primary teachers in the short term.

Even if a school has all physical facilities such as desks and chairs, good classrooms, lab facilities and playgrounds, no school is truly complete without good teachers. Even in Sri Lanka, one of the few developing countries with a completely free education system from primary grades to university, there is a shortage of qualified teachers for certain subjects. This must be addressed without delay, apart from resolving salary anomaly and transfer issues. Universally, teachers are not a highly paid lot, compared to the immense service they render to society. If indeed they can be paid more, many teachers would consider giving up doing private tuition which has now become a supplementary income avenue for many teachers. Sri Lanka is one of the few developing countries with exemplary education statistics that often match those of the developed world and addressing teachers’ issues will help keep it that way.

Teachers not only teach you lessons from textbooks, but they also teach the lessons of life. In a way, it is the latter that finally makes you a fine man or woman, someone who is useful to society and others around you. For a teacher, all students are his or her sons and daughters. It is a noble, selfless thought. Teachers are people worthy of celebrating for what they bring into our lives: Knowledge, discipline, values, ethics and skills.

Teachers will be able to make an even bigger contribution if they are given more recognition, resources, training and facilities. They continue to face challenges brought about by poor training and low status. Teachers must be given every opportunity to receive additional training in the subjects they teach and other subjects as well. One must also not underestimate the service rendered by sports and physical training teachers, for sports help children to become better citizens who can accept victory and defeat in sport as well as in life with equal composure.

The perception of teaching as a profession is not all that rosy here and in many other countries. There should be a renewed drive to recruit trainee and graduate teachers stressing the fact that teaching is a very rewarding experience in more ways than one. Quite apart from any monetary consideration, good teachers always take pride in moulding good citizens who are useful to society. That is one of the perks of being a good teacher and only a very few other professions can make the same claim.

More training should be given to those who are already in the profession, with attention to career enhancement, promotion prospects and technology skills. A teacher’s education too is never complete. Teachers must also evolve with the times, because printed textbooks and traditional blackboards could go out of style in a decade or so. With Governments around the world intending to move to a tablet-based, paperless education system, teachers must be trained in new techniques of teaching with such devices. The future is here already and teachers must adapt.