*Says no society can grow beyond its educational attainments
Teachers are critical in the transformation and development of a country, and this is why they should harness the power of cutting-edge technology in their work so as to better prepare young people for today’s world.
This was the summation of the speech by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, today in commemoration of the World Teachers’ Day at the Eagle Square, Abuja.
Speaking on the theme of this year’s World Teachers’ Day, ‘The Transformation of Education Begins with Teachers,’ Prof. Osinbajo noted that teachers should embrace innovation because they also have an important responsibility to themselves, “for them to be at the cutting edge of advancements in education and especially the use of technology and modern teaching methods.”
Emphasising on the significance of the knowledge economy in global development today, the Vice President said, “Whereas our previous pedagogy inadvertently produced students who were good stores of crammed information, the demands of the future require that we position our young people to think for themselves, to absorb and process the wealth of information available to them, and to tease out useful knowledge.
“Education must respond to the dynamism, speed of development and massive changes in society. Educators must understand the skills required to take full advantage of a world dependent on technology. In addition to listening, education today includes writing, ideation, imagining, and critical thinking skills. It is no longer merely learning by rote,” he added.
While thanking them for their services to the country and its people, the VP who himself was a teacher for 40 years since 1981 urged teachers to continue to “plug themselves into the global knowledge pool”
According to him, teachers should “reach for every resource available to us to better equip ourselves for the challenging and rewarding task of preparing our young people to meet the demands of our changing world.”
“We cannot give what we don’t have, so we must stay on the cutting-edge of research, learning, and development. We can only guide our students in the direction where we ourselves have been,” he said.
Similarly, the VP noted that this year’s World Teachers’ Day was a special day to celebrate teachers, describing them as “the very best of us and perhaps the most important persons in our nation,” praising them as “those men and women who daily go into classrooms to banish ignorance, imbue knowledge, inspire and nurture the minds of millions of young people one school day at a time.
“It is the day in the year when we say what we should say every day to our teachers: thank you. Thank you for your patience, commitment, your sacrifice, and your hard work amidst many challenges.
According to the VP, “no society can grow beyond its educational attainments.”
He said one of the major differences between healthy, well-functioning and prosperous societies and poorer societies is education.
“We owe so much of our well-being as a nation to our educators at every level,” he observed.
Continuing he said, “our future as a nation is so heavily dependent on education and our educators. This explains why the Federal Government is determined to return teachers, teaching and the teaching profession to their rightful places.
“To this end, we are fully implementing the professional teaching and teacher qualification framework standards that will invariably impact on education outcome and teacher performance at the pre-school, basic, secondary and tertiary levels.
“We are also developing a verifiable database of teachers in Nigeria, already the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has registered 2,108,342 teachers and licensed 1,250,000 teachers.”
“Our new teachers’ policy is already being implemented at the Federal level and in some States and I urge States that have not, to do so immediately, the gains are already showing.”
He added that the Federal Government has also launched the Nigerian Learning Passport; a digital learning platform with online, mobile, and offline capability that enables continuous access to quality education.