TSC got it right on grade D trainee teachers

An excellent teacher both demonstrates and inspires. However, although anybody can inspire children, to demonstrate, one must have a firm knowledge of the subject matter.

Finland’s system of education is ranked among the best because teachers are recruited from among the top achievers at school. In this regard, teachers lead the learners from the front because they are role models.

In Germany, teachers are the best-paid professionals, so we are told, because they are the ones who bring up all other professionals. This is not in doubt because everybody goes through the hands of a teacher.

The Ministry of Education recently enrolled more than 3,000 students with a minimum grade D+ to teacher training colleges amid a protestation by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), which is the teachers’ employer.

The TSC argued that the recruits fell below the minimum requirements for such training and it could not, therefore, employ them upon completion. The trainees have since been sent packing — having done two terms in college — following a court ruling to that effect.

The commission has had its fair share of blame over its decisions concerning teachers, such as the recent delocalisation of school principals, but, on this, it got it right.

In college, trainee teachers are taught the history of education, methods of teaching and management of education. What to teach is upon the teacher — and herein lies the problem with a grade D teacher, with all due respect to them.

Teaching is not like driving, where one gets better with experience; children just need and deserve the best.

There is a need to create jobs for our youth. However, teaching is one profession that should not be prised open for all and sundry, because it has expectations. The mindset that if one cannot do anything else they go for teaching is wrong.

The recruitment was a populist decision in the wrong sector. The fees paid by these students should be refunded or the victims be channelled to colleges that offer other skills required by the economy.

Politicians thrive on such populism for votes; no wonder, we now hear of the need to strip the TSC of its constitutional mandate of being the gatekeeper of the teaching profession!

The TSC may have won the battle, but our children are the main beneficiaries of the turn of events. It should stand its ground; the future of our children is in school.

School is the only remaining hope for them to get the right role models because families and churches have failed us. After all, the negative stories on our leaders, particularly politicians, corruption and other vices that children see, hear or read about in the media are subjects of discussion in schools.

We need the right professionals to safeguard schools, now the only safe place for our children. A good teacher is a doctor who heals ignorance and an artist who inspires creativity; therefore, the men and women who should handle our children must be those with impeccable knowledge.