Showing teachers love must go beyond gifts - EDITORIAL

Much is spoken of students and their achievements, but seldom are teachers highlighted for their contributions made to the field of education. We all know that teachers draw paltry salaries. However, much is expected of them inside the classrooms; out of which individuals with many skills step into the job market.  
Sri Lanka’s education institutes like schools have toiled for years to make teaching at these academic institutes an attractive occupation, but with little success. This has largely been because teachers armed with qualifications tend to start their own teaching academies or tuition classes. The latter option gives teachers freedom to try out our new teaching methods and use better tools for education; like the multi-media projector. 

However, on Wednesday (October 5), when we celebrated ‘World Teachers’ Day’ we took a moment to remember our teachers for the contributions they’ve made to our lives. 
In the present era students, school authorities together with parents take great pains to organise events to felicitate teachers on this special day. There are shopping malls in this country which dedicate a section of their stores exclusively to showcase presents made for teachers. In a large number of schools the authorities insert some pressure on children to bring a present for the teacher on this special day. 

Giving gifts to teachers is viewed from both a positive and negative perspective. This is an era where commercialism has driven everybody to give gifts of a material nature to our loving teachers. But we did pass an era when we had other methods of showing love and appreciation to our teachers. 

Teachers love both types of students who come under their tutelage. The first type falls into the category of studious ones who obtain the grades and the others fall into the category of those who don’t really shine at school or worse; those who drop out. There was a heartwarming story on facebook some time back when a teacher visiting a garage to get her Scooty bike repaired saw that the mechanic was a school dropout who had at one time been her pupil. The student recognised the teacher and refused to accept money for the repair. The teacher went home that day with a heavy heart. In her post on social media that same day she had stated that when a student fails at education so does the teacher. 

Teachers can be presented with better facilities to teach. When browsing through United Nations (UN) literature on the subject of teachers we see much written about the need to acknowledge the role of teachers as ‘knowledge producers’. It’s with much concern that we must write here in this column that teachers are often overworked. They can be given better facilities to dispense knowledge inside classrooms. In most teaching environments one of the most common complaints is that teachers are frustrated because they are unsupported when doing their job. 

The UN literature this writer came across underscores the fact that there exists an urgent need to recruit 24.4 million individuals as primary teachers globally. There is also a need to recruit 44.4 million individuals as secondary education teachers. These vacancies must be filled if the authorities wish to achieve universal basic education by the end of this decade. 
In this context we saw teachers in Sri Lanka (Central Province) initiating an agitating campaign demanding they be confirmed in their jobs at the schools they teach. There have also been protests time and time again by teachers and principals demanding a salary revision. Though we celebrate World Teachers’ Day with much pomp and pageantry we must also take a peep into the environments in which teachers dispense knowledge and the lives they live.  

Returning to the topic of recognising our teachers and their efforts there is great news reaching us from overseas. Three innovative teaching programmes carried out in Benin, Haiti and Lebanon respectively have come in for recognition and now qualify to receive the 2022 UNESCO-Hamdan Prize. The prize is the result of the initiative taken by PH4 Global, American University of Beirut and Graines de Paix Foundation to honour teaching programmes. This is food for thought for individuals who want to shower teachers with gifts on this special day. The evaluation of teachers can also be done in a different way.