A Great teacher shows qualities such as patience, kindness, flexibility, resourcefulness, tolerance and open-mindedness. He/she also has a good sense of humor and is honest, humble, and enthusiastic and most importantly enjoys teaching. Teacher is the person who shapes the future of any human being. Teachers are the people who hold the candle of enlightenment, knowledge, and, prosperity. Any nation who does not respect its candle bearers can never prosper and will always remain in darkness. Advancement of society depends upon teachers. Promoting the everlasting significance of teachers “World Teachers’ Day” is held annually on 5 October to celebrate the essential role of teachers in providing quality education at all levels.
Teachers instilling value education in someone protect and promote the dignity of teaching as a noble profession, worth profound regard. This kind of education can mold a human being for life. Teachers bear an enormous responsibility of passing on their wisdom and knowledge. Italian astronomer and mathematician Galileo expressed, “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.” Good teachers help in enabling this discovery. They open new avenues, and encourage students to explore and achieve their true potential.
National development could be flourished and a society truly gets prosperous with knowledge all begins from its teachers. While the role of knowledge and a skilled society with visions and aspirations in the success of a nation cannot be stressed enough, it should also be remembered that knowledge cannot be acquired if it is not sought and received through the help of the teacher. This is why everyone should put efforts into seeking as much knowledge as possible, and appreciate the teacher’s importance in guiding us and the generations to come, to become knowledgeable and morally upright people.
The role of the teacher is a multi-faceted one comprising academic, pedagogical and social roles. Academic roles comprise teaching, counseling and supervisory roles while pedagogical roles include instructional, evaluation and facilitating roles. As a facilitator of learning, the teacher is involved in motivating pupils to learn, maintaining control in the classroom and the school in general, and creating a conducive environment for learning to take place. Social roles of the teacher includes among others socializing roles which is preparing pupils to participate in the way of life of the society; others include reference roles, detective roles, parent substitute, confidants and affectionate roles.
No other personality can have an influence more profound than that of a teacher. Students are deeply affected by the teacher’s love and affection, his character, his competence, and his moral commitment. A popular teacher becomes a model for his students. The students try to follow their teacher in his manners, customs, etiquette, style of conversation and his get up. He is their ideal. He can lead them anywhere. During their early education, the students tend to determine their aims in life and their future plans, in consultation with their teachers. Therefore, a corrupt and decadent class of teachers can harm a nation more seriously than a class of corrupt and perverted judiciary, army, police, bureaucracy, politicians or technocrats. A corrupt and incompetent teacher is not only a bad individual, but also the harbinger of a corrupt and incompetent generation. A nation with corrupt teachers is a nation at risk; every coming day announces the advent of its approaching destruction.
Teachers have to play a cardinal role in the building up of the character of the next generation. It is a fact that a civilization cannot rise out of a skeleton of mere ideas and abstract concepts. Civilization finds a concrete shape in the practical behavior of a nation, based on these principles and concepts.
Once the practical aspect is gone, the civilization also disappears and can only be studied through its remnants preserved in museums and chronicles. This necessitates the provision of a learning atmosphere throbbing with life in our educational institutions through the presence of the teacher, with a view to infuse confidence in our students and to enable them to be proud of their culture, to respect their national character and national emblems, and to ornament themselves with societal conduct and morals. They should stand firm on the centuries old foundations of their cultural tradition and at the same time should establish standards of excellence in their academic performance.
Besides this, we live in a materialistic world. Only those command respect and position in society who have enough money. The teacher, being poor, with lowest remuneration rewarded, makes their accommodation difficult; consequently, he/she does not enjoy any prestige in society. He suffers in many other ways also. It has become a common feeling with the people that, one who fails everywhere else and has been rejected at all other places, becomes teacher as a last resort.
In this way also teaching profession has been down-graded, their services are considered non essential and thus they do not get necessary recognition from society.
Converse to aforesaid ground realities both education and teachers are deemed the weakest strata of third world countries. This dimming priority have had pushed out of socio-economic circle of contemporary world. Formerly, in a ceremony marking teacher’s day in Kabul, President Ghani promised to increase the salaries of teachers and to allot each of them a piece of land within six months – a process which has not happened. It is right time the government gets this sector streamlined well nurtured capable to compete with developing counties of the world. A nation reaches to prominence, turn unbeatable and matchless, only when greater intrepid steps are taken to eliminate illiteracy by declaring the state of educational emergency which can only materialize when the due value of teacher is reinstated.