By Dr. Rex Casiple
On October 5, 2020, the whole world celebrated the United Nations’ (UN) World Teachers’ Day. The theme of this year’s celebration is “Teachers: Leading in crisis, reimagining the future”.
This day provides the occasion to celebrate the teaching profession worldwide, take stock of achievements, and draw attention to the voices of teachers. This is the day when more than a hundred countries highlighted the vital contributions of teachers to development.
The World Teachers’ Day offers the chance for the worldwide public to observe significantly the vital contribution which teachers create, both outside and inside the classroom. The celebration reminds the whole world of the role of teachers in providing quality education at all levels.
It raises awareness of the work done by teachers and to support them to help the learning of future generations. Hence, in this day Filipino teachers were honored as part of the celebration.
The first World Teachers’ Day was celebrated on October 5, 1994 by several countries in the world. This year 2020, the World Teachers’ Day coincides with the National School Opening in Basic Education in the country.
The opening of classes in elementary and secondary levels in the country was delayed because of the health protocol developed to combat the deadly COVID 19 pandemic. And despite this pandemic, education in the country continues with the support of the government, teachers and parents.
Teachers are the influencing factors in our life. They are like beacons of light guiding us during the formative years of our life. They molded us and shaped our future. And, the things or ideas we learned from them remain with us throughout our life.
Most of us failed to show appreciation and gratitude for the altruistic devotion of our teachers. They receive a basic salary that is not commensurate to their efforts and contributions to educating our students. In this situation, there is a need to increase the salary of around 3.2 million financially burdened teachers in the country. This may provide them relief from their financial burden.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report, 165 countries around the world have closed all their schools in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 virus. This closure affected nearly 1.5 billion students and 63 million primary and secondary school teachers.
Online classes have been adopted in most countries but millions of poor children who have no access to the Internet have been left out of the classroom.
In this time of crisis caused by the pandemic, teachers are responsible to ensure the welfare of their students. It is expected from them to face the burden of creating safe and healthy learning spaces for their students. Effective teachers helped students to succeed.
This year’s World Teachers’ Day celebration is significant to us amid the Covid-19 pandemic. This time is a great opportunity to give thanks to all teachers in the world and in this country in particular who have gone out of their way to make sure no one is left behind.
Today, our modern teachers have shown great leadership and innovation to ensure learning never stops despite the deadly COVID 19 pandemic. Amid this pandemic period, teachers around the world worked to find solutions to allow education to continue through various modes of teaching-learning system, such as full online teaching, flexible or blended learning, or hybrid model, etc., appropriate to the learning situation of the students and the availability of the learning resources.
Finally, in the celebration of the World Teachers’ Day, it is worth to recognize all teachers in the world, the Drivers of the Modern Education.
To all teachers in the elementary, secondary and tertiary education, thank you for molding us into what we are now.
Happy World Teachers Day Madams and Sirs!
