International Teachers Day 2018: Significance, top quotes

New Delhi, Oct 5: Today (October 5) is International Teachers Day which is celebrated to commemorate the role that teachers play in shaping the world. The theme of this year's International Teachers Day, also know as the World Teachers Day, is "The right to education means the right to a qualified teacher." Last year the theme was "Engaging Teachers".

It is observed all over the world over since 1994 after the UNESCO Recommendation concerning Teachers.

To celebrate World Teachers' Day, the UNESCO and Education International (EI) mounts a campaign each year to help give the world better understanding of teachers and the role they play in the development of students and society. They partner with the private sector such as media organizations to achieve this purpose.

Significance:

Teachers play an important role in a person's life. They impart values in a person that eventually shape the personality. Teachers lay the foundation of a civilised and progressive society. Their dedicated work, and the pain they encounter to ensure that students turn out to be enlightened citizens deserve high recognition.

More than 100 nations celebrate the World Teachers' Day globally. As indicated by UNESCO, World Teachers' Day speaks to a massive token of the mindfulness, comprehension and thankfulness showed for the fundamental commitment that educators make in advancement by teaching.

To reach the 2030 Education Goals of universal primary and secondary education, the world needs to recruit almost 69 million new teachers. This 'teacher gap' is more pronounced among vulnerable populations, such as girls, children with disabilities, refugee and migrant children, or poor children living in rural or remote areas.

Here are some inspirational quotes for teachers:

• "The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth." - Dan Rather
• "I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. It might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit." -John Steinbeck
• "There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it." -Charles F. Kettering.
• "The teachers who get "burned out" are not the ones who are constantly learning, which can be exhilarating, but those who feel they must stay in control and ahead of the students at all times." -Frank Martin