Today our country celebrates Teachers’
Day which commemorates the birthday of great scholar, philosopher and former
President of India Dr S Radhakrishnan. When few friends and students of Dr S Radhakrishnan
requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday, he preferred the day to
be observed as Teachers Day and thus every teacher of our country gets the
privilege of being honoured on 5th September since 1962. India has
held teachers in high esteem from the ancient times and we could understand the
importance of teachers from an Indian proverb that describes the hierarchy of
respect to be accorded to different personalities in one’s life; Mother,
Father, Teacher & God.
Teachers are the builders of
nation and are entrusted with the task of shaping the future of our country.
Every school is a miniature society comprising of pupils from different
sections of the community. Today’s children will rule tomorrow’s world and the
prosperity of our nation would ultimately depend on the quality of education
being imparted to them in the schools. Today, our country is emerging as a
major stakeholder in the world affairs and talents of Indian professionals are
globally recognized in every field of development. This would not have been
made possible without the support of dedicated teachers. Dr A P J Abdul Kalam
who had won the hearts of millions of peoples always held his teachers in high
esteem and this is more than enough to tell our young children that whoever
respects their teachers would definitely excel in whatever field of study they
undertake and will always be a treasure to the society. Let me also remind my
teacher friends an important factor here; teachers who were revered most had
always taught their children with love and dedication to their profession.
Now a question may be raised;
are teachers responsible for today’s chaos existing in our society? Even though
teachers alone are not responsible for the anarchies, they are also accountable
to some extend because they are the one who connect children and their
education. Let me state an important drawback of our present education system here.
We are caught between the fine heritage of our Indian education system and the
deliberately imposed Western education system. The conflicts are made more
complicated by the commercialization of education in the private sector and the
deep rooted corruption afflicting the Govt. sector. Adding fuel to fire is the
implementation of major educational policies without taking the ground
realities and feasibility constraints in to consideration. Finally the poor
teachers are at the receiving end. I hope we could gradually come out of the
shortcomings through our dedication and love for the children.
On
this Teachers Day, I salute all the teachers who contribute their best to the
children in spite of the hardships they face and pray to the almighty to bless
them with the strength and wisdom to serve the needy children more efficiently
in the coming days.
