TODAY is World Teachers Day!
So SunEducation asked Mzansi people if they thought teachers deserved to be celebrated.
- Nokuthula Radebe of Mzimkhulu, KZN, said: “Yes! With education people are able to solve difficult problems.”
- Zanele Ntombela and Ntombiyethu Khoza from Kliptown, said that being illiterate is sad.
“If you cannot read well, you will miss the opportunities to find decent work.”
- Thoko Mathiba, a gogo from Lawley, a Joburg kasi, said: “Without teachers looking after our children, we will never have a bright future.”
Dr Naresh Veeran, commercial officer at Embury Institute for Higher Education, said: “Teachers must be students too. Getting a teacher’s degree or diploma does not immediately qualify you to teach.
“Teachers’ knowledge, skills and motivation need to be constantly upgraded to make sure they are equipped to tackle the demands of educating youth.”
Unesco – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation – has a theme for the year: “The right to education means the right to a qualified teacher”.
Unesco’s theme reminds governments that the right to education cannot be achieved without access to qualified teachers. And the world is short of qualified teachers. Experts estimate that to reach the 2030 education goals of universal primary and secondary education, most countries need to recruit almost 69 million new teachers.
Veeran said that teachers need to be taught the right skills, which then improves their pupils’ chances of a better life.
The Adopt-a-School Foundation is an organisation focused on upgrading teachers’ skills.
Operating since 2002, it organises and manages workshops to fix critical school problems such as poor literacy.
