Teachers are more than custodians of the future they are shapers of the future says the Minister of the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development Dr Derek Sikua.
Speaking as the key note speaker to open the national teachers education conference on Tuesday Dr Sikua said, teachers have one of the most important jobs in the society.
“You may have heard people saying that teachers are the custodians of the future, but they are more than custodians for the future, they are the shapers of the future,” he said.
The former education Permanent Secretary for Education said, schools need to ensure that young people leave the school system not only with adequate qualifications, but sufficient confident and social skills that they need throughout life.
To achieve that he said, teachers themselves should sufficiently be in touch with the needs of society, meaning having a sense of the world of work and the role of education in preparing young people for that.
“I would like to keep the point about keeping teachers connected to the need of the society during your deliberation today and tomorrow and I would welcome some thought to what we could do to broaden the opportunities for young teachers get more experience of the world beyond the education sector,” he added.
“But the most important thing, of course, is that our teachers should be as highly skilled as teachers should be,” he said.
He said, he is aware of the many challenges that are encountered by teachers to achieve the status of quality teachers where he said, it is encouraging to note that progress on teachers training provisional development is making headways in the desired direction.
He added whatever destination may reach in the quest to ensure there are quality teachers, the country has to continuously ensure that teachers stay high quality and that means high-quality training and support throughout their careers.
With that Mr. Sikua also commended those who attended the very important conference saying their topics for the conference will have established a set of teachers education principles which he believes should guide their discussion and should be the foundation for concrete proposal to follow.
By Biriau Wilson Saeni
