It was the 18th celebration of the World Teachers' Day on Friday, October 5. Taiwo Olanrewaju reports that teachers would count if everybody took a stand for them.WHAT would life be like without teachers' Come to think of it, we are all teachers. Whether you are a parent, child, driving instructor, vocational instructor or a patent medicine seller with apprentices, you are a teacher. The difference, however, is that there are some who teach in the classroom or online with the primary intent of imparting knowledge via formal education unto others.Years back, teachers were highly revered. They were semi-gods, especially the headmaster who taught in the village. Their students respected them so much and they dared not misbehave at home because as soon as either of their parents threatened to report them in school, they sat up and behaved.Nowadays, some pupils still respect their teachers to some extent, especially primary school pupils but respect for teachers has waned tremendously among secondary school and tertiary institution students.What could have been responsible for the diminishing reverence for teachers by pupils'In his views, Mr Ayo Aduroja, an elderly patent medicine seller cited Western civilisation and some teachers' immoral acts as the causes.He explained further that some students naturally lack home training and as such do not respect or fear anybody. 'Rudeness comes easily to such students and this is because their parents are too busy at their places of work to instil some discipline into them while the acceptance of the Western culture has eroded some of our traditional values, replacing them with the Western culture which has no courtesy or respect.'On the part of the teachers, Aduroja said that at the secondary school level, some of them engage in illicit affairs with their students, which sometimes result in pregnancy. 'That also happens at the tertiary level, in addition to lecturers and students, in some cases belonging to the same cult group. Some lecturers also collect gratifications ' gifts, money, to pass their students. So, how will these students respect them''Mrs Rhoda Egbunike, a provisions seller, opined that the private school system eroded the little reverence the students had for teachers as it was alien to the African culture not to beat children country to the prince in private schools. That, she explained, had given the pupils the opportunity to misbehave and disrespect their teachers sometimes.She also added that as a secondary school student, her father dated her teacher. Such acts, she affirmed, would make teachers lose respect before their students.In Nigeria, it is common for male teachers to date their female students but abroad, female teachers lure their male students to have sex with them. A study by the American Association of University Women reported that 9.6 per cent of students in the United States claim to have received unwanted sexual attention from an adult associated with education; be they a volunteer, bus driver, teacher, administrator or other adult; sometime during their educational career. While a study in England showed a 0.3 per cent prevalence of sexual abuse by any professional, a group that included priests, religious leaders, and case workers as well as teachers.In many countries, Nigeria inclusive, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional qualifications or credentials from a university or college. These professional qualifications may include the study of pedagogy, the science of teaching. Teachers, like other professionals, may have to continue their education after they qualify, a process known as continuing professional development. Teachers may use a lesson plan to facilitate student learning, providing a course of study which is called the curriculum.But some teachers are also accused of ineptness because they did not train in a specialisation college and therefore, lack such competences as teaching abilities, pleasant disposition and patience which are needed to drive home their points to their students.Mrs Janet Solanke, a trained teacher from the African Teachers' Training College, Ifako-Agege, Lagos, said it is the influx of private schools that led to the recruitment of 'untrained' teachers. 'In my days, you could not hold the chalk if you had not passed through the teachers' training college,' volunteered the retired teacher.Some teachers also get involved in fraudulent activities.Majority of teachers are painstaking, they go the extra mile to ensure that their students succeed and are extremely joyful when their students come out tops in examinations and competitions. Apart from teaching, they accompany the students on excursions, are responsible for the students' discipline, supervise their extracurricular activities and study, especially for boarding students. They love the job and it reflects in their teaching habits.But what do they get for their enthusiasm and sense of duty' At a point in time in Ibadan, Oyo State, landlords did not hesitate to put up this notice: 'Rooms/ Flats for rent, but not for teachers! That was as a result of the failure of the state government to pay teachers' salaries promptly.Teaching aids, books and other materials, which ought to have been provided by the government, are not in place in secondary and tertiary institutions. Some parents even compound the problem by beating up their children's teachers. While some organisations also short-change the teachers as claimed by the president of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Mr. Michael Olukoya, who told newsmen in Abuja, in May that the Nigeria Teachers Institute (NTI) which trained 125,000 teachers under the Federal Government's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) gave them N2, 500 each instead of N14, 000 training allowance. Parents do not complement teachers' efforts by ensuring that their children revise their notes, do their homework, and resume school on time while the Federal Government deliberately excluded them from the national merit awards while recognising politicians who make little or no contributions to national development.To worsen the situation, a few 'privileged' civil servants, who are saddled with the responsibility of paying the entitlements of teachers who are able to weather the storm to retirement age, have also decided to pocket the teachers' gratuity and pension for their personal use' Hence, at retirement, a lot of teachers look unkempt; slumping and dying on queues while waiting to be screened to be able to access their deserved pensions. What a way to treat our heroes'In order to give teachers their deserved honour, the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), since 1994, has been holding World Teachers' Day, annually on October 5th to celebrate teachers worldwide. Its aim is to mobilise support for teachers and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers.This year's World Teachers' Day theme was 'Take A Stand for Teachers' and the Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Rufa'i, lamented the plight of Nigerian teachers, imploring everybody to take a stand for the teacher in order to make him count while the NUT president, Olukoya, demanded 65 and not 60 years as teachers' retirement age and the payment of the 27.5 per cent enhanced salary.Also, for the first time, teachers from Federal Government Colleges joined their counterparts to celebrate their day at the Eagles Square in Abuja on Friday while deserving teachers were presented with the President's Teachers and Schools Excellence Award. As a way of showing that teachers count, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines held a 'National Prayer for Teachers' on September 30, 2012, asking for God's blessings on teachers as they mould young minds and shape them to become future leaders and on Friday, October 5th, the prayer was repeated.
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