Support teachers to transform lives support
As we celebrated World Teachers’ Day yesterday, I was happy with this year’s theme of the day - ‘Young teachers: The future of professions.’ This is because in Uganda, we don’t have many young people in the profession as we would want and those who are there are not always supported to make them better teachers than they are today. Therefore, the day’s theme cited above, emphasises the fact that we need to secure tomorrow’s teachers by having more young people join the teaching profession and harnessing the enthusiasm that new teachers have to improve learning outcomes.
As we work on attracting young people to join the profession, giving them support will be critical. This is why a new campaign dubbed #TeachersTransformLives was launched at the celebrations to advocate better support and train teachers to succeed in the classroom.
It is a fact that teaching is a noble and respected profession. For instance, in Uganda, if you are a musomesa (teacher), you are held in high esteem. In our communities, most teachers were sought after to help in decision-making and to hold positions of leadership.
Yet, despite the importance of the role of teachers, they don’t always get the support they deserve. World over, we have continuously had reports of teachers demanding improved welfare. There has also been a gap in terms of training and professional development. All these challenges deter the young generations from joining the noble profession and to teachers already in working.
Like all professionals, teachers need continuous mentorship, motivation, training and development. They need to feel that what they do matters and is beneficial to society. They need materials and resources that will enable them teach well and encouragement and feedback that will help them improve their knowledge
That is why the new campaign - #TeachersTransformLives - is shining a light on inspirational teachers, whose teaching has been transformed through a tripartite programme of materials, support and development. This is a teaching approach that helps teachers to transform young people by improving learning outcomes.
The #TeachersTransformLives campaign sees teachers share their stories of how their teaching approach has enabled them to turn their classrooms into springboards for success. Given the right support, every teacher can succeed. That is one of the main messages of the new campaign designed to highlight the importance of empowering teachers worldwide.
If we want learning outcomes in Uganda to improve, then we must focus more on the teachers.
Christine Apiot,
Kampala
