GWI AND THE WORLD TEACHERS DAY
World Teachers’ Day commentary on the role of teachers, their value, and importance by Dr Shirley Gillett, GWI VP Education
5 October 2026
World Teachers’ Day was established in 1994 by UNESCO.
I am taking this opportunity to celebrate World Teachers’ Day with a commentary on the role of teachers, their value, and importance. As the saying goes, most people can, when asked, remember the name of their first teacher. This, in itself, tells us the importance of teachers in someone’s life and education. The influence a classroom teacher has on their pupils was demonstrated by the famous Blue-eyed/Brown-eyed classroom experiment (Jane Elliott, 1968). Though ethics would mean this would never now be allowed it did take place proving that after only fifteen or so minutes a teacher’s feedback was instrumental in how a child thought about their abilities. and their attitudes to the world around them (see end note).
We all recognize the word teacher but what it means and our experiences would vary for each of us: teacher as instructor, teacher as coach, teacher as guide, and teacher as counsellor are some such. The teacher’s role incorporates most of these and more! Each country and culture will also vary regarding how a teacher performs in a school and class. In a mega-study by Hattie(2009) researching what were the key influences on learning in a large number of schools the result was twofold-teachers (in particular the relationship of teachers with students) and the role of feedback.
Teachers’ styles and pedagogy have varied over the centuries from one on one tutor for the privileged to large class instruction with very little engagement to more currently the Deweyan influenced student engagement and group learning with teacher as guide. The “jury is out” on how teachers fare with the fast coming AI and digital learning with much research being done on this worldwide currently. UNICEF (2026) places teachers at the very centre of digital transformation, ensuring that technology serves educators rather than sidelining them. Teacher education is essential but challenging here.
Why I believe we should celebrate WTD is that a teacher’s job is challenging involving working with and understanding the curriculum; managing the students; organising the classroom; making the learning motivating and preparing resources and providing useful feedback including formal and informal assessment. For myself, on reflection, I was fortunate in having a range of teachers many of whom were inspiring and I learnt much which I still remember. As a teacher myself I can acknowledge it is hard work but a passion both creative and rewarding.
A relevant GWI resolution relating to teachers and the relationship between teachers and students is, ” Diversity in Teacher Education as a Positive Contribution to an Equitable Education”(2016) emphasising aligning teacher ethnicity with student demographics so that students can identify and feel familiar with their teachers.
Experiencing a teacher is a universal experience and we feel it has influenced us however Peter Mclaren (2002) questioned the ability of a teacher to influence individual students compared with the power of broader societal structural forces on schools. Thus, a more extreme postcritical view of teachers is that they create the optimal conditions for students to learn by anchoring lessons in their lived, everyday experiences. And also to teach students how to critique.
There are nearly 100 million registered teachers working worldwide across pre-primary, primary, and secondary education. Still the world faces a deficit of 44 million teachers to reach universal basic and secondary education goals by 2030. [Unesco 2026) The Teachers for Rural Futures program, an initiative by Graduate Women International (GWI) in partnership with the Ugandan Federation/Association of University Women to train 50 young rural Ugandan women as qualified secondary school teachers and education ambassadors is a positive effort here.
In conclusion, individual teachers and teachers as a group deserve much respect and a metaphorical badge of honour and collective “thank you” on World Teachers day.
Dr Shirley Gillett (VP education) GWI