The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. – William Arthur Ward
BY FRANCOIS VAN DYK
A few years ago, a very close friend of mine embarked on a new career and left Africa to teach English in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. Her Thai adventure just lasted a year but her stories on how revered teachers were in this South Asian country has remained with me. If she needed to join a queue at the local bank, she was always expedited to the front – everyone else recognising her as a teacher. Gifts were regularly left at her front door by parents to say thanks for the work she was doing at the school.
In the past, monks performed the role of teachers in Thailand and children were educated by them – hence the big reverence still shown to teachers today. They even have a day dedicated to teachers, Wan Wai Kru, on the 16th of January, when pupils pay respect to their teachers and many schools even close for the day.
This contrasts with many other countries, where the absolute importance of teachers to build future generations is often forgotten. One just needs to look at salary scales across the world to determine that teachers are mostly not well-paid members of the workforce.
Teacher remuneration
The Varkey Foundation and the University of Sussex’s latest Global Teacher Status Index for 2018, which looks at teaching in 35 countries across the globe, found that Swizz teachers were the best paid in the world with average salaries of around USD77 500 (KSh7.75 million) per annum. At the other end of the scale the research showed educators in Uganda were the worst-paid, with an annual salary of USD4,205 (KSh420,500). Though not included in this specific research paper, Payscale.com reports that the median Kenyan secondary school teacher salary was around USD9,288 (KSh928,800) per year – obviously dependent on the experience and level of positions.
Alternative ways to elevate teachers
With teachers playing such an important role in preparing our children for the future, governments globally will need to rapidly re-evaluate education systems. Not just ensuring that fair remuneration is being paid to teachers, but also to prepare them with new knowledge and indeed totally new teaching curriculums to face the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
A World Economic Forum (WEF) report titled The Future of Jobs and Skills bluntly puts it: “In many industries and countries, the most in-demand occupations or specialties did not exist 10 or even five years ago, and the pace of change is set to accelerate. By one popular estimate, 65 per cent of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that don’t yet exist.”
Hence it is crucial to not just modernise our existing teaching curriculums but to also re-educate our teachers to prepare for this rapidly advancing new world. Luckily the same technological advances that creates these future challenges also provides many of the solutions.
The role of technology
Online education and learning have made great leaps in recent years and many online courses are now available to people across the world at affordable costs. Sites such as www.edX.org offer highly beneficial short courses at no cost. The courses available here range from Humanities, Engineering through to Data Sciences which includes Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence technologies. Several other online resources like Udemy and the Shaw Academy are also available and helpful to teachers in advancing knowledge and skills at a very low cost. Governments would do well to make these kinds of training budgets available to their educators.
Traditional approach is indispensable
Though these online resources provide great opportunities for teacher education, offline training and skills development is still crucial as it offers better interactions and feedback loops between the educator and the students. Many learners have reported that they retain knowledge better in such an environment rather than an online approach. The challenge for the continuous professional development of teachers is then to develop a harmonious balance between an online and offline environment and to utilise the positives of both educational approaches.
Vision 2030
Kenya Vision 2030, which aims to transform the country to a middle-income nation, has three main pillars – economic, political and social. Education and training have been highlighted as a key social pillar to improve the lives of Kenyans. Countless examples have shown the strengths of a knowledge-based economy versus the traditional agricultural and resource-based economies.
Kenya seems to be on the right path. During the recent Global Citizen Festival held in Johannesburg, President Uhuru Kenyatta made a televised announcement where he pledged that the country’s education budget will be close to 30 per cent of the total national budget – a huge share compared to most other nations. However, it will be wise to ensure that teacher education gets a fair share to ensure that teachers get the skills and knowledge to prepare our youth for the challenges of a rapidly changing world.
Francois van Dyk, @sbalie, heads up Operations at Ornico, the Brand Intelligence research company. He worked in public relations before entering the world of media research.
