Address of President of Dominica on World Teacher’s Day 2016

Teachers at the meeting of the Dominica Association of Teachers last year
Teachers at the meeting of the Dominica Association of Teachers last year

EDITOR’S NOTE: World Teacher’s Day was recognized internationally on October 5, however Teacher’s Day is being observed in Dominica today, October 7. Below is an address by President of Dominica, His Excellency Charles Savarin on World Teacher’s Day 2016.

Fellow Dominicans,

World Teachers’ Day is recognized and celebrated internationally on the 5th of October to commemorate the great strides made for teachers on 5th October 1966 when a special intergovernmental conference convened by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris, France, adopted the UNESCO/International Labour Organization (ILO) Recommendation, concerning the Status of Teachers. According to UNESCO, World Teachers’ Day represents a significant token of the awareness, understanding and appreciation, displayed for the vital contribution that teachers make to education and development.

This year, World Teachers’ Day symbolizes the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 UNESCO/ILO Recommendation, and is also the first World Teachers’ Day to be celebrated within the new Global Education 2030 Agenda, adopted by the international community one year ago. The theme for this year, “Valuing Teachers, Improving Their Status”, represents the fundamental principles of the fifty-year old Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers and also underscores the need to support teachers as reflected in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A specific education goal, SDG4, calls for inclusive and equitable quality education and the promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all.

The Education 2030 Framework for Action approved in 2015 as part of the SDG’s, highlights the fact that teachers are fundamental for equitable and quality education and, as such, must be adequately trained, recruited and remunerated, motivated and supported within well-resourced, efficient and effectively governed systems. However, in order to achieve this goal, it is of paramount importance to continuously increase the supply of qualified teachers and to motivate them by valuing their work, recognizing their role in society, and by giving them the respect that they so rightly deserve. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimates that countries will need to recruit 12.5 million primary teachers to achieve the goal of universal primary education by 2020. Over four million new lower secondary teacher positions also need to be created to achieve universal lower secondary education by 2020.

In Dominica, however, we have had universal primary education since 1874 when the Leeward Islands, to which Dominica belonged, enacted an Education Act making primary education compulsory for children between the ages of five and twelve. This Act was revised in 1925 and at subsequent times during the 20th century to create the system of primary education that we currently have for children up to 16 years old. Universal access to secondary education was established in 2005.

In a globalised economy, education, skills and knowledge are increasingly seen as key assets for economic competitiveness, and most countries and regions in the world aspire to become “knowledge based economies” (Gouvias, 2007). As part of this aspiration, education becomes more central in the development strategies of governments and, in particular, “schools and teachers are being asked to do more than they have done before, but also in a different way” (Sahlberg, 2006, p.283). Overall, the international development community pays increasing attention to the key role that teachers play in the provision of quality education for all (Leu, 2005).

In the February 2016 Worlds of Education publication, the following quotation from a Verger and Bonal (2012) publication is quoted as follows: “social sciences research and, more recently, the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reveal that if education quality or learning outcomes are to be improved, society needs to take the equity between and within schools, as well as the social, economic and cultural conditionings that affect student learning more seriously.” Verger and Bonal further assert that unfortunately, managerial educational reformers tend to omit the importance of these types of elements when prescribing specific policy tools that aim at improving student learning.

Verger Antoni, Author of Reforms and Teachers: Emerging Policies, Controversies and Issues in Developing Contexts: states that overall, the way teachers are perceived and treated in Global Managerial Education Reforms (GMERs) often involves a multitude of paradoxes and shortcomings.

• The first paradox which consists of the fact that GMERs continuously stress the importance of teachers and emphasizes the key role they play in education quality, but simultaneously disempower them in several ways. Specifically, they do so in three ways: a) by not sufficiently taking into account their preferences in policy processes, b) by treating teachers as assets to be managed rather than as agents of change, and c) by undermining their autonomy in front of the state and students’ families.

• The second paradox relates to the fact that managerial reforms request more responsibilities from teachers but, at the same time, advocate their de-professionalisation. Teachers are supposed to do more things than before and in a different way, even when their preparation and work conditions might be poorer.

• The third paradox is related to how GMERs advocates use evidence in a very ‘selective’ way. On the one hand, they promote managerial reforms even when they are aware of the fact that evidence of the positive impact of such reforms in learning outcomes is still inconclusive (Bruns et al., 2011; Experton, 1999; Patrinos et al., 2009; Vegas, 2005). On the other hand, however, they seem to ignore that the level of learning outcomes is higher in countries where their policy prescriptions are very marginal (or, in fact, have not been even implemented yet).

• The fourth and last paradox identified is that GMERs ask teachers and schools to assume new duties and more complex mandates, but without taking into account whether there are the necessary material and technical conditions to undertake them.

If we want our future generations to have the right values and the best that life has to offer, we need to recruit the best and brightest candidates into this noble profession, and do our utmost to retain them. On the occasion of World Teachers Day, I join the Dominica Association of Teachers in its appeals to society to value, support, and empower teachers locally and globally. We cannot allow the status of teachers to fall as this would be damaging for the life chances of the next generation.

Over the past decades, the Dominica Association of Teachers (DAT) has championed the cause of valuing our teachers and improving their status. Thus the status of our teachers are continuously being improved through job tenure, professional training and teacher development, a continued thrust to regularize and classify teachers towards adequate remuneration, legal representation, and the provision of financial, social and emotional support for teachers on an ongoing basis.

In conclusion, I wish to encourage the DAT in its efforts to ensure that teachers are fully represented, and encourage the organization of events, and participation in these events in order to make the day a truly international celebration.

World Teachers’ Day is an opportune time to acknowledge our teachers and to say thanks for the significant contributions they make in our classrooms and communities. Let us all show appreciation and thank God for our teachers.

I congratulate all teachers on the occasion of World Teachers’ Day.

I thank you.”

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