World Teacher Day

Today in New Zealand we are celebrating World Teacher Day. Teaching is a profession that is immensely rewarding and working with the children is an absolute privilege. The rise of the world wide web has enable education to much more global in nature and we have abetter understanding of the key issues our colleagues are confronted with in their own communities.

The teaching profession across the world faces the challenge of providing a quality education to meet the new demands of the 21st century. Economic, social, scientific and technological needs, the issues of sustainable development, poverty reduction and related questions of decent work for all, the AIDS epidemic and school violence are increasingly impacting on the profession.

In addition to this, not just in new Zealand but in many countries, there is a severe shortage of teachers, with an estimated 2 million 18 million additional teachers needed worldwide if universal primary education is to be achieved by 2015. A staggering figure!

The reason why we went into teaching is to try to light the flame of learning in each child that comes through the door and to nurture relationships to enable the kids to be the best that they can be. Faced with such high expectations, teachers often feel undervalued, insufficiently supported and ill equipped professionally to cope with the realities of the environments in which they work.

On World Teachers’ Day we celebrate teachers across the world, in all countries, towns and villages. The role of teachers in achieving quality education for all and on this World Teachers’ Day we thank the teachers, at Muritai and across the world, and affirm that yes, TEACHERS MATTER.

If you haven't thanked your class teacher lately you will be surprised how much that endorsement can do to help them do the job they do so well.