Teachers must be given right training to deliver quality education – Minister

World Teachers’ Day

Education Minister, Dr Rupert Roopnaraine said teachers must be given the right training in content, methodology and outlook in order to deliver quality education to children.
If the education system fails, nothing else is likely to succeed and, therefore, if teachers fail, then the system would inevitably crumble also, the Minister noted.

“It is, therefore, imperative that teachers succeed, since they are the very foundation of the education system,” he said, noting that it was important to identify the right calibre of persons to be teachers.
“They must be given the right training in content, methodology and outlook. To that must be added the correct environment and the requisite terms and conditions of service,” he expounded, highlighting that those imperatives together comprise the complete approach to ensuring that the teachers deliver quality education.
“It is to the provision of the aforementioned that the Government commit, within its means, in its quest to provide quality education and its effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to which it has committed,” he said.
In 1994, UNESCO proclaimed October 5 to be World Teachers’ Day, celebrating the great step made for teachers on October 5, 1966, when a special intergovernmental conference convened by UNESCO in Paris adopted the UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, in cooperation with the ILO.
This recommendation sets forth the rights and responsibilities of teachers, as well as international standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, teaching and learning conditions. Since its adoption, the recommendation has been considered an important set of guidelines to promote teachers’ status in the interest of quality education.
Roopnaraine stated that the 2016 Teachers’ Day is the first World Teachers’ Day to be celebrated within the new Global Education 2030 Agenda adopted by the world community one year ago.
He stated that this year’s theme, “Valuing Teachers, Improving their Status”, embodies the fundamental principles of the 50-year-old Recommendation, while shining a light on the need to support teachers as reflected in the agenda’s SDGs.
A specific education goal, SDG4, pledges to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”; therefore, Roopnaraine stated teachers were not only pivotal to the right to education, they were key to achieving the targets set out in SDG4.
He added that this approach recognised that each child mattered and that the involvement of all of the stakeholders was also an imperative for the delivery of quality education.
“Also in the pipeline are the curriculum review process and the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the education system, both of which will inform the revision of the education sector’s strategic plan,” he said.
The Minister stated that the Government has recommitted itself to the
maintenance of a professional teaching service that can assure the nation of quality education, the production of rounded and patriotic citizens and ultimately, the development of society.
Acting Chief Education Officer Marcel Hutson, in his remarks, stated that
teachers spend a significant amount of time with their students and fill gaps left by temporarily or permanently absent parents, often times performing critical roles as counsellors and confidants.
“In many cases, you functioned as conveyors of non-academic (life) skills such as trust, respect, accountability and conflict resolution, all of which contribute to the creation of well-rounded students who will positively impact all spheres of society,” he said.