Thank you Cikgu, we appreciate you

On Sunday, the world celebrated World Teachers’ Day. We owe a lot to these men and women who have devoted their lives to teaching and guiding us. And for this reason we have been celebrating Teachers’ Day on Oct 5 since 1967 to commemorate the signing of the Unesco/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers on Oct 5, 1966.
In 1994, the World Teachers’ Day was inaugurated and today schools in more than a hundred countries hold all kinds of activities to celebrate the day.

So much honour has been accorded universally to teachers in recognition of their role in society. Somehow we seem to be a little bit low key these days in celebrating Oct 5.

Maybe it is because we seem to have less respect for this noblest of professions now than we once had. Indeed, we say good things only about the teachers we had. Somehow we seem reluctant to respect our children’s teachers despite the fact that they do play a role in opening the doors to the world for them.

We seem to have decided, mostly based on hearing others saying so, that teachers these days are not as dedicated as their predecessors were and lack the passion for the job. Have we considered that if they are indeed lacking in dedication and passion whose fault is it that they are seen that way.

Has the Education Ministry, despite declaring to the world that it wants to "perkasakan" the teaching profession, been doing its job in improving the working conditions of teachers so as to attract only the best – regardless of race – who want to teach to apply.

Is the ministry doing enough to ensure that those selected through the most stringent process are provided with world class training so that the new teachers are able "to educate, to give instructions or lessons, to cause to learn and to understand, to inspire, to endow knowledge; to help and guide someone to develop academically, socially and emotionally; to aid someone in self-improvement; in short – to open doors to a better world."

Have we been fair indeed when in one sweep of the brush we painted all of our 350,000 teachers lazy and dull. What about the thousands of dedicated ones among them who still teach with a lot of passion despite having to "attend courses, direct traffic, organise campaigns, nurse the sick, go for meetings, liaise with parents, discipline the child, hold after-school activities, and even run Teachers’ Day celebrations." Thus, despite the many shortcomings let us still honour and respect them. They deserve it.