World Teachers’ Day

October 5th is marked as World Teachers’ Day. This year’s commemoration will focus on closing the gender gap in the schools and recruiting quality teachers. UNESCO estimates that the world needs an additional 2 million female teachers to reach gender equality. Furthermore, female teachers will also attract more girl students. Young girls, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, constitute the majority of children not in school. According to the UNESCO article, 2/3rds of all illiterate adults in sub Saharan Africa are women. The region, alone, needs an additional 1 million teachers to provide every child quality education.
The solution is not to open more schools, as the article pointed out. There is a growing pace of school construction in sub-Saharan Africa. The problem is further aggravated by lack of trained and competent teachers. Having well trained experts, eager to teach and competent is what will solve this problem. But none of this is possible without parental involvement. Without parents as primary educators, acknowledged and respected as such, global education will continue to be in peril. It is unpardonable that after so many years of celebrating World Teachers’ Day, UNESCO continues to ignore the contributions of the home schooling movement to education.
Let us be reminded that homeschooling came about as a reaction to the dilemma. Parents, in response to the problems their children were facing in the schools, sought a solution. Their resolution was immediate and on a local scale; but more can happen if we all answer the call and do something about the setback.
As one of the fastest growing forms of private education, home education provides the much needed wo(man) power needed. Although hardly acknowledged in the global discourse on education, home schooling the primary years, helps tremendously in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Another UNESCO report stated that if each child had access to quality primary education, the other years were almost guaranteed to be a success. The early years of education are the most needed foundation that most of the world’s children do not have access to; especially African girl children.
Homeschooling parents are providing what is much needed in education; parental involvement. The schools cannot do it without quality teachers. Quality teachers cannot do it without parents on board. It truly takes a village and it begins from home.