Every year, on October 5, the global community takes a day to celebrate and memorialise teachers around the globe. Teachers play a critical role in shaping the future through nurturing students and driving educational progress. The role of teachers in the classroom transcends the teaching environment to contribute significantly to the shaping of young minds that soon become citizens who occupy various roles in broader society. At home, after the law of the parents, often is the law of the teacher. From a young age, children become accustomed to the voice of their primary caregiver and secondly, outside of the home, that of their teacher. The two tend to take on a dance that informs who we all eventually get to interact with as the child develops.

There is a second layer that World Teachers' Day focuses on as it relates to the teaching profession; it is the understanding that as the child is being developed, so is their environment and so are their teachers and these three, in a triune nature, begin to give into each other and the final product is what we interact with and understand to be our global community and world.

To fully harness the potential of children, World Teachers' Day advocates for the necessity of valuing the voices of teachers as critical in the process of decision-making that affects the teaching profession.

This year’s World Teachers’ Day highlights the need to address the systemic challenges teachers face and to establish a more inclusive dialogue about their role in education. The 2024 theme is focused on "Valuing teacher voices: towards a new social contract for education".

Responding to this theme; members of the national youth network ACTIVATE! Change Drivers are passionate about the teaching profession and share with us their experiences in the classroom.

A case of how young teachers responded to World Teachers Day:

“Teaching is not a job but a passion”.

Chulumanco Mbalula (31), a 2013 activator from the Western Cape, who teaches mathematics to grade 9, 11 and 12 learners, narrates how she joined the teaching profession by accident and found her skills enhanced through the network-led ECD Programme.

“I never thought or imagined that I would teach, however the year 2012 I joined a few youth programs in my community. I encountered financial problems and couldn’t go to varsity. The year 2013 the financial problems escalated and I hustled between college, and community projects and joined ACTIVATE! Change Drivers. I joined a project named ECD and started teaching and facilitating other projects.”

“During the first session of Activate, I realized that I enjoy and love what I am doing just not with the age group that I was currently involved with at the time. So the opportunity then availed itself to pursue teaching, but I decided to choose the FET phase.”

For Mbalula her decision to pursue teaching is a passion that was met with mixed signals as her loved ones believed she had A-grade school marks, and would be better suited to pursuing another vocation.

“For me, teaching is not a job. It is a passion. Coming from a family of teachers and family members who work for the education department, I gained a different perspective on teaching. While other people around me questioned my decision as to why teaching when my marks were so good. I would simply respond by asking whether they would want their kids to be taught by someone who achieved below-average”.

“The perspective of the teacher influences the experience of the classroom”

“When you’re a teacher working for the government, you are government, so then before asking how the government can assist you, ask yourself how can I improve the systems within the government. However, if the government can increase the number of teachers in schools and teach at the ratio of 1:35 (one teacher to 35 learners) in my opinion the other problems within our systems can then be addressed accordingly”.

“The full classes do put a strain on the teacher and do not produce quality education. We also need to bear in mind the generation we’re teaching, therefore if the government can perhaps improve the ICT in public schools, especially no-fee schools”, she adds. 

According to Mbalula, we need a new breed of teachers who do not pursue teaching because of their economic conditions or poor school leaving marks.

“We need compassionate teachers. We need teachers who are willing to change paradigms. Teachers who are change makers with a fighting spirit to fight for our children’s rights and theirs. Teachers who are selfless and who would never give up on our learners. It’s sad how learners drop out from school to be druggies or criminals because the system failed them,” she passionately emphasizes.

“There needs to be high-level security for teachers and tracking of children who drop out”.

Themba Robert Senna (30), a 2019 activator based in the North West, Zeerust, teaches grade 4 social sciences and English first additional language for learners in grade 7.

For Senna his experience as a tutor in varsity birthed a passion for teaching he has come to find discouraged by the systemic challenges found in the classroom as a decline in progress to digitize the education system and provide psychosocial support to the learners negatively impacts the schooling experience.

“Learners don’t respect young teachers. Parents need to discipline their children and monitor their academic responsibilities.

Senna says he has observed how non-inclusive the CAPS (The National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement) curriculum is for learners who have difficulty learning in the classroom through the uniform traditional pace.

“The curriculum does not cater for learners with various learning barriers so most learners struggle to cope with academic pressure. I have lost many learners who dropped out due to social issues from their homes,” he adds with concern.

“When classes are overcrowded this leads to a burden on the entire teaching experience and some learners get left behind.”

Senna believes that World Teachers' Day is a day to celebrate those who are, “the shapers of our future leaders and embracing the vital role they play in building and empowering our nation”.

There is a need to build resilient and equitable education systems that serve the public good and uplift the communities in which they work. World Teachers Day calls for a new social contract for education that truly values and empowers the voices of those who are essential to its success; it continues to be important to emphasize how the teaching experience does not begin or end in the classroom, it is shaped by the outside world and significantly shapes the outside world and the worldview of those who soon will become the custodians of the future.

Written by Zamayirha Peter, Activate! Change Drivers