Ghana yesterday joined the world to celebrate World Teachers Day, which is a day to celebrate the teaching profession worldwide.
The day was set aside by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) along with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Education International.
The theme for this year’s celebration is “Teachers: Leading in crisis, reimagining the future”.
The World Teachers Day became a big step for teachers on October 5, 1966, during a special intergovernmental conference summoned by UNESCO in Paris, France.
The conference adopted the UNESCO/ILO recommendation regarding the status of teachers in cooperation with the ILO.
The UNESCO/ILO recommendation describes the rights and responsibilities of teachers.
It also puts forth the authority and obligations of international standards in the initial preparation, education, recruitment, employment, teaching and learning conditions.
Significantly, this set of guidelines has helped to promote status of teachers in the interest of quality education around the world.
Unfortunately, this year’s celebration is taking place at the time the world is battling the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also affected the education process, thus creating challenges for teachers across the world.
It has also created new challenges for teachers, particularly concerning the methods of teaching and learning. Teachers, due to the pandemic, had to provide remote learning and to make education accessible to all students across the world.
Indeed, during the crisis, teachers have shown, as they have done so often, great leadership and innovation in ensuring that learning does not stop and no learner is left behind.
The Ghanaian Times supports the view that a teacher affects eternity: as we have stated above teachers have influence over who every professional becomes.
In fact, we support the position that teaching might even be the greatest of arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
Teachers, we believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth.
We therefore salute all teachers on the occasion of World Teachers Day and celebrate every teacher who is impacting the world with knowledge.
We also acknowledge the role they are playing in these difficult times, individually and collectively, to create new learning environment for students to continue their education.
We urge all Ghanaians to support the teacher everywhere in the country to continue to deliver in the midst of the pandemic so that we can lessen the burden posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on the teaching profession.
Once again we say “Ayekoo” to all teachers.
