Count down to World Teachers' Day

The event, hosted by Rajamangala University of Technology (RMUT), in collaborations with the Ministry of Education and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), is held for the second consecutive year to celebrate the World Teachers Day occasion.

"The congress will remind each of us working in each organisation to be alert to the changes that are happening in the world's educational scene," says Assistant Professor Numyoot Songthanapitak, rector of Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi (RMUTT), in reflection to this year's theme, Education and Training for Global Change.

"We can then participate and exchange in panel discussions in order to decide what can be adapted and adopted for implementations, with regards to the organisational context," he adds.

As a co-host of the event and the inaugurator of the World Teachers Day celebration, Unesco will also be sponsoring several panel discussions throughout the congress. It will be involved in, for example, a panel discussion on vocational education and training, led by head of centre for vocational education in Bonn, Germany.

"One of our staff will be speaking in the panel that deals specifically with education and ethics - the ethics of science and technology, education's role in meeting ethical challenges," says Sheldon Shaeffer, director of Unesco Bangkok.

In addition, Shaeffer himself will be giving a keynote address that focuses on the status of teachers in the Asia-Pacific region, and the importance of teachers in improving quality of education. The speech highlights statistics from a recent book published by Unesco Institute of Statistics in Montreal, which conducts a global study on teachers' status in Asia-Pacific region.

"I hope to layout particular challenges faced by teachers in the Asia-Pacific region - issues in terms of working conditions, qualifications, salaries, work load," Shaeffer says. "These are the kinds of things that are of greatest concerns, and especially about teachers shortage - whether or not the teacher training system is large enough, good enough to provide the number of teachers required is an important issue."

The event's highlight

The highlight of this year's congress is the official announcement of The Princess Maha Chakri Award, which has been established in honour of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn and in recongnition of her exemplary contributions towards progress and advancement in education.

Beginning in 2007, the award will be given to one teacher and one lecturer from Southeast Asian countries, in recognition of their dedication and achievements. Starting in 2010, the award will expand to cover the work of teaching professionals in Asia and Pacific countries, before reaching out globally by 2013.

In addition to the award, the presentations of nearly 40 academic and research papers by education professionals from 13 countries, including Thailand. According to Sirilak Hanwattananukul, Dean of RMUTT's Faculty of Education, these papers represent best practices in education from many countries, which will become the highlight of the panel discussions.

Dr. S.W.S.B. Dasanayaka from Sri Lanka's University of Moratuwa, for example, will be presenting a paper on "A General to Niche MBA Programmes: How far are they relevant for local corporate environment?" The paper questions the quality of MBA programmes in Sri Langka and the need for the programmes to be geared toward the needs of local corporate culture, students' career, and financial expectations, rather than merely modeling after MBA programmes in the West.

Assistant Professor Ho Wai-Yip from Hong Kong Institute of Education will discuss the prospect and predications of "Teaching Islam as a Cultural Literacy Pedagogy." The paper highlights three important aspects of teaching Islam in the formal education curriculum: to enlarge the students' worldview and appreciation for cultural diversity; to equip students with ability to resolve conflicts in the age of cultural clashes; and to make sense of the changing political geography and the interaction of global 'War on Terror'.

Barry Kissane, Dean of Australia's Murdoch University, will bring up the role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in classrooms in his paper, "Technology in secondary mathematics education: The role of calculators." The paper specifically explores the greater role hand-held technologies, particularly scientific calculators, can play in classrooms where access to computers and the Internet is limited.

Dr. Stephen J. Miller from Oklahoma State University, USA, will present the best practice in distance learning, "Leveraging Intellectual Resources to Serve Learner Needs." The paper explores the diverse technologies, faculty development processes, and learning methodologies employed by Oklahoma State University and how it delivers education to its domestic and international constituencies.

From Taiwan's National ChiaYi University, Dr. Jung-Chang Tang will discuss the practice of using the Pivotal Response Training to enhance communicative behaviour of children with intellectual disabilities. This study was conducted on elementary school children with intellectual disabilities in Southern Taiwan.

According to Shaeffer, the presentations of papers and panel discussions remain key to the success of this year's congress. "They will highlight what many of the challenges are and, hopefully, the papers will present possible solutions to many of these challenges," he says.

Similarly, Prof. Numyoot adds that the Congress should allow educators of all levels to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of Thailand's overall education scene, in comparison with those of other countries'. "We can then pass the messages on to the country's administrators of education. This is our ultimate goal," he says.

For more information on the Second Education Congress, visit www.wtd2006.net .

Inauguration day Unesco inaugurated World Teachers Day in 1994 to commemorate the signing of the Unesco-International Labour Organisation (ILO) Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers on 5 October 1966. The Recommendation outlines international standards for dozens of issues that relate to the most important professional, social, ethical, and material concerns of teachers. Every year, more than 100 countries celebrate World Teachers Day. The celebrations vary from conferences and teachers workshops to attempts to get teachers and teacher organisations in dialogue with parliamentarians. "This is often important to do, trying to get legislatures and others involved and understand what the problems of the teaching profession are, trying to organise, in some cases, a poster campaign or essay campaigns among teachers and students," says Unesco Bangkok's director Sheldon Shaeffer. "A lot of different ways to try to raise, not only the visibility of the day itself, but also of the continuing challenges related to the status of teachers," Shaeffer says. To Shaeffer, Thai teachers have enjoyed, to some extent, a relatively healthy social dialogue with the Ministry of Education. This, he says, is evident in the number and type of teachers organisations in the country. "You'll find other places in the world where teachers unions are not allowed, where at best maybe informal teachers associations," he adds. To download the full 1966 Unesco/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, visit www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/techmeet/ceart/recs.htm .