On World Teach­ers’ Day, Mon­day Oc­to­ber 5, we will ho­n­our all teach­ers around the globe.

The ti­tle of my ar­ti­cle is tak­en from a state­ment made by Amer­i­can teacher Christa McAu­li­ffe, who said: “I touch the fu­ture. I teach.” She was part of NASA’s Teacher in Space Project. Sad­ly, she lost her life on Jan­u­ary 28, 1986 when Space Shut­tle Chal­lenger broke apart 73 sec­onds in­to its flight, killing all sev­en crew mem­bers. May they rest in peace.

World Teacher’s Day is co-con­vened by UN­ESCO, the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­ga­ni­za­tion, UNICEF, and Ed­u­ca­tion In­ter­na­tion­al. It’s “a day to cel­e­brate how teach­ers are trans­form­ing ed­u­ca­tion but al­so to re­flect on the sup­port they need to ful­ly de­ploy their tal­ent and vo­ca­tion, and to re­think the way ahead for the pro­fes­sion glob­al­ly...

“In 2026, the Day marks the 60th an­niver­sary of the 1966 ILO/UN­ESCO Rec­om­men­da­tion con­cern­ing the Sta­tus of Teach­ers. Six decades on, as the Rec­om­men­da­tion is be­ing re­vised, new chal­lenges have emerged for the pro­fes­sion, from dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and cli­mate change to in­clu­sion, mi­gra­tion and dis­place­ment.” (UN­ESCO).

UN­ESCO’s Theme this year is: “Stand­ing with teach­ers: 60 years of pro­tect­ing the pro­fes­sion, ad­vanc­ing its sta­tus and shap­ing our fu­tures.” The day is linked to the fol­low­ing UN Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs):

• SDG 4: Qual­i­ty Ed­u­ca­tion;

• SDG 5: Gen­der Equal­i­ty;

• SDG 8: De­cent Work and Eco­nom­ic Growth;

• SDG10: Re­duced In­equal­i­ties; and

• SDG 17: Part­ner­ships for the Goals—“en­cour­ag­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion among gov­ern­ments, in­sti­tu­tions, unions, and com­mu­ni­ties to strength­en ed­u­ca­tion sys­tems glob­al­ly.”

I agree with Nel­son Man­dela that “Ed­u­ca­tion is the most pow­er­ful weapon which you can use to change the world.” How­ev­er, as stat­ed in SDG17, teach­ers are not the on­ly ed­u­ca­tors who “touch”/in­flu­ence the lives of stu­dents. Re­search shows that par­ents/guardians play a crit­i­cal role in the ed­u­ca­tion process.

At the start of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year, PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar em­pha­sised that dis­ci­pline, re­spect, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty must be es­tab­lished in the home rather than be­ing left en­tire­ly to ed­u­ca­tors.

“She pressed par­ents to ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor their chil­dren’s be­hav­iour, aca­d­e­m­ic progress, and cur­ricu­lum, while en­sur­ing they are well-cared for and pre­pared for school. She al­so ad­vised par­ents to lis­ten to their chil­dren’s con­cerns and build col­lab­o­ra­tive re­la­tion­ships with teach­ers” (T&T Guardian).

She stat­ed that the Gov­ern­ment is draft­ing law to hold par­ents ac­count­able for chil­dren’s be­hav­iour.

What key el­e­ments are es­sen­tial for build­ing an ef­fec­tive, ef­fi­cient, in­clu­sive ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem?

We know that stu­dent in­dis­ci­pline can be de­mo­ti­vat­ing for teach­ing staff and can al­so be dis­rup­tive to oth­er stu­dents. Leg­is­la­tion must be con­sid­ered with­in a wider con­text.

Re­mem­ber, the po­em by Dorothy Law Nolte: “Chil­dren Learn What They Live.” What are stu­dents learn­ing in their homes and in our vi­o­lent so­ci­ety? How ef­fec­tive are TT’s crime pre­ven­tion/re­duc­tion strate­gies?

In his The­sis: The role of parental in­volve­ment in im­prov­ing dis­ci­pline in sec­ondary schools of the Kgakot­lou cir­cuit (South Africa), Lenny Masa­di Man­amela states:

“Fac­tors con­tribut­ing to learn­er in­dis­ci­pline can be clas­si­fied in­to learn­er per­son­al­i­ty traits, fam­i­ly and so­ci­etal fac­tors, and vari­ables with­in the school en­vi­ron­ment.” What are the key sys­tems that make a whole-school ap­proach to be­hav­iour man­age­ment ef­fec­tive?

What strate­gies have we de­vel­oped to ed­u­cate par­ents about their roles/re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as par­ents?

Are teach­ers tech-savvy and pre­pared to meet their ex­pand­ing roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in a world in which change is tak­ing place at an un­prece­dent­ed pace? What re­sources/on-go­ing train­ing have been made avail­able to pre­pare them to meet 21st Cen­tu­ry chal­lenges to tack­le com­plex glob­al is­sues, and, in­deed, to be­come glob­al cit­i­zens?

In his pa­per en­ti­tled: “The Role of Ed­u­ca­tion in Prepar­ing for a Rapid­ly Chang­ing World”, An­drei Mc­call re­minds us that “Tra­di­tion­al mod­els of ed­u­ca­tion, which of­ten em­pha­sise rote learn­ing and stan­dard­ised test­ing, are in­creas­ing­ly seen as in­ad­e­quate for equip­ping stu­dents with the skills and com­pe­ten­cies need­ed in the 21st cen­tu­ry.”

He high­lights “the im­por­tance of fos­ter­ing crit­i­cal think­ing, cre­ativ­i­ty, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and adapt­abil­i­ty, and life­long learn­ing in stu­dents. These skills are es­sen­tial for nav­i­gat­ing a world where job mar­kets are con­stant­ly evolv­ing, and new in­dus­tries are emerg­ing.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the in­te­gra­tion of dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy and tech­no­log­i­cal pro­fi­cien­cy in­to cur­ric­u­la is cru­cial, as tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to per­me­ate all as­pects of life and work.”

On Fri­day I will be host­ing a din­ner for some of my past stu­dents, whom I taught over 50 years ago in Lon­don. I re­main a men­tor for those who need sup­port. “We nev­er know which lives we in­flu­ence, or when, or why.” (Stephen King).

Let’s en­sure that we have done all that is nec­es­sary to help teach­ers “touch the fu­ture”.