KATHMANDU, Nepal, September 13 (IPS) – If we really want to reimagine the role of education in the coming decades, it’s about taking drastic measures to enhance the role of teachers in developing countries are indispensable.
The upcoming Transformational Education Summit in New York — September 16-19 — has the ambitious mission of redrawing the traditional boundaries of learning, helping to visualize how children today can truly be equipped with the best tools to overcome the growing challenges facing the world.
It is clear that teachers in the developing world are the main drivers of such personal growth and transformation, yet teachers are too often neglected and looked down upon.
The problems facing the planet – from income inequality to climate change to geopolitical tensions – are interconnected.
Advanced learning experience alone, especially in public schools around the developing world is a must, but it is one that has been most pursued with very mixed results over the decades.
However, the gap between private education and the public school system in many emerging countries is not narrowing, but growing larger. At the same time, achieving better educational outcomes must be accompanied by a strong drive to foster a sense of civic engagement among students.
Community participation is a sensitive issue that can be misinterpreted and misused, even in the case of politics entering its early stages by inculcating elements of the subject matter in students’ minds. nationalism and chauvinism.
Instead of becoming a tool that allows students to rise up for the community, a tool that acts as the citizen’s glue, we can get the opposite result, with the formation of traditional cadres with closed rather than open mind.
Teachers must be those who are able to provide the tools that enable students to grow with a positive desire to do better on an individual level, but also for the betterment of society, enabling a quality of life. learning is not your own. -Focused but geared towards the public interest.
Therefore, all stakeholders involved in the education sector must figure out how to improve the quality of local teachers, enabling them to act as real agents of change. .
Don’t forget that we are talking about individuals who often have no other choice in life but to start a career in teaching and often do not have the degree, enthusiasm and passion for the work.
That is a huge challenge for any developing country, one that is not extremely costly but also difficult to design, especially in terms of teacher professional development.
If it is simply impractical to increase the requirement for higher education specialization for all teachers in public schools while at the same time ensuring stricter accountability measures for surname.
It is certainly positive that exponentially increasing funding for public education will be one of the key topics to be discussed at the Transformational Education Summit but funding alone will not be enough.
We need to focus on the micro level and envision new avenues for public teachers who are truly passionate about their work, to get the indispensable tools they need to advance in the industry. work and help their students succeed in a “whole” and unselfish way. .
For many people who hang around without love or commitment to their work, it is inevitable that governments must muster the courage and resources to slowly transform their professions. , a proposal, that, given the already high level of unemployment. difficult for most developing countries, neither easy nor politically convenient.
However, if we really want to rethink the way we educate the most vulnerable children, we really need to chart new avenues to make teaching one of the most attractive professions in the world. leading in developing countries.
No doubt, programs like Teach for America and its affiliates around the world are doing a great job by trying to attract young recruits who have just graduated in two years, but Admirable is not enough.
We really need to create a framework that enables young graduates to become lifelong teachers, allowing them to make informed choices in choosing a teaching career.
That is why the upcoming Summit should devote enough energy to thinking big about the teaching profession from the perspective of the South, where teaching is not taken seriously.
Why not provide the resources, especially technical, to create national and local academies to build the teaching profession of tomorrow?
Sooner or later, it will be indispensable to establish higher qualifications to teach in schools but at the same time, governments can begin to change the landscape of the teaching profession by establishing Leadership Academy for the Teaching Profession.
Imagine centers of learning, where the best teachers and best principals from all public schools, can enhance their skills and knowledge throughout a path of growth Professionally and personally comprehensive.
Such institutes can offer both the type of intensive course in executive mode but also full time with the best professionals working as faculties.
In the United States, the late billionaire Eli Broad has devoted a lot of resources to equipping school executives, including principles through advanced capacity building training courses. His philanthropic work also helped establish the Broad Center at the Yale School of Management, a transformative Leadership center for public education.
This is the vision needed to transform education in the still developing and emerging world. It’s not just about the international community’s commitment to funding public schools through multi-year plans.
What is needed is proper planning for the transformation of the teaching profession locally.
It is paramount that we focus on leadership rather than simply developing a teacher’s career. Leadership is essential, after all, to take the quality of education to another level while promoting the virtues of civic engagement.
The upcoming summit should set aside specific time for conversation about how we can transform the teaching profession.
A comprehensive quality education capable of building 21st century skills can only be realized if the international community and developing countries work together to innovate in the field of leadership. education religion.
They need to find new ways to award the best local teachers and at the same time help those in the profession but let loose and uninterested in finding their own work.
Don’t forget that truly transformative education in the developing world requires bold and grand national plans but also a single focus at the micro level, working alongside teachers who believe in believe in their profession.
Finding new ways to support their work can be the best legacy of the Transformational Education Summit.
Simone Galimberti Co-Founder of ENGAGEMENT, a non-profit non-governmental organization in Nepal. He writes about volunteering, social inclusion, youth development, and regional integration as a driving force to improve people’s lives.
IPS UN Office
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