It is that time of year when pupils are writing their final exams. And it is on record that township schools have had low pass rates in past years. Let us wait and see what happens this year.
As the old saying goes, you reap what you sow – and this month is harvest time for pupils.
I pay tribute to teachers, those men and women who help us to get a start in life and give us a sense of purpose and direction. It is said that pupils do not normally have a learning problem – it is teachers who have a teaching problem. When pupils do well in exams, they are applauded and praised. But when they do badly, teachers are the ones who are perceived to be failures. Is there not a resultant lack of confidence in their performance to provide a good education and, in turn, an erosion of their ability to train and educate their pupils?
Some have since thrown in the towel.
An educator once asked how teachers could get the results the public demands when teachers are not happy with their salaries, when society is not supporting them and the conditions under which they teach are not good.
Before labelling teachers, people should take a good look at the way teachers are treated by the government and their own communities. There are some teachers who look on their profession as a calling, much as ministers of religion do. There are those teachers who feel it is their patriotic duty to educate their pupils, despite difficulties both in and outside the classroom. These are teachers who stay after school with their pupils to finish their schoolwork. They even sacrifice their weekends and school holidays for their pupils. These are the teachers who have managed to motivate pupils to produce the good in themselves, to carry with them the dreams and aspirations of their society.
I sincerely believe that some teachers deserve our appreciation for their efforts. These are not those teachers who often leave school early to do their own private studies, trying to improve themselves at the expense of our pupils or abandon children to go on protest.
Let us be grateful to those dedicated teachers because they are special in our lives and the country’s future. They feed the children with knowledge daily, teaching them so that they may teach others.
We will also never forget teachers like Julius Nyerere and many African men and women, who have inspired this song of praise.
– Ayanda Billie, Uitenhage