Teachers have been urged to reflect carefully on their noble profession.

It was Danny Faure, Minister for Education and Youth, who made this special appeal during the Teachers' Day award presentation ceremony on Saturday October 4, at the Polytechnic Hall, Anse Royale.

Besides teachers, the event was also attended by First Lady Sarah René and high officials from the Ministry of Education and Youth. This year's theme is "Supporting Teachers for Quality Education".

Altogether 44 staff members coming from education institutions over the country received different types of awards. They include longest serving teachers, teachers with 25 years of service, retiring teachers, longest serving studies co-ordinator, longest serving headteacher as well as longest serving expatriate teachers.

In his speech delivered on the occasion, Minister Faure also talked about the different support structures, from training to infrastructure development and other support mechanism in schools, at the ministry headquarters and at community level with the aim of enabling teachers to enhance their professional development and therefore upgrade the level of education offered to students.

Minister Faure noted that to date, the ministry has trained 350 primary teachers (creche to primary six) through its part-time in-service training programme and that 380 are to be trained in French language this year.

The minister also said that a first group of 26 technical studies teachers is completing their Bachelor in Education (B. Ed) degree with the University of Edith Cowan, in Australia.

"My ministry remains fully committed to ensure that teachers get the support and training they need in their work. Teachers should also use the resources at their disposal and find means and ways of organising themselves professionally for a better learning environment," Minister Faure said.

The minister thanked all teachers for their hard work, their commitment to teaching and learning, and for being there to provide the young and aspiring citizens with the guidance they need in order to develop into mature and responsible adults.

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