World Teachers’ Day was inaugurated on the 5th of October, 1994, to honour the signing of the UNESCO /ILO recommendations that dealt with the status of teachers. Since then, World Teachers’ Day is celebrated annually on October 5, to highlight the essential role of teachers, at all levels, in providing quality education. This year, the theme for World Teachers’ Day is, “Recovery Begins With Teachers”, and UNESCO is seeking to highlight, through photographic exhibitions, testimonies supporting recovery with an emphasis on situations where teachers were and are operating in demanding situations. In Guyana, there is need for improvement in several spheres of the educational sector.  Teachers need to be recognised for the crucial contributions that they have been making towards national development. On numerous occasions, many successful citizens attribute their successes to everyone and everything else, except their teachers. Sadly, these individuals neglect to recognize the significant contributions that their teachers had made in their lives. It was rather refreshing to hear the open testimony of the Chief Executive Officer of LAPARKAN, Mr. Glen Khan, expressing quite passionately to the Guyanese public at the launching of the “National Teachers’ Award”, the important role that his teachers had played in contributing to his successes. The Guyana Teachers’ Union applauds him for openly expressing his gratitude to his teachers. Once teachers are constantly affirmed for the roles that they had played and continue to play in the lives of Guyanese children, then they will be doubly motivated to ensure that recovery takes place.
The theme, “Recovery Begins with Teachers”, is appropriate at this time. The Honourable Minister of Education, Mr. Shaik Baksh, has over the past year said that the “Education Train is on the Move”, but many need to understand that teachers are needed for the smooth movement of this train. The Guyana Teachers’ Union is an important stakeholder in this move and will not sit idly by and allow measures of this movement that will negatively affect our teachers to be foisted on us.
Today, as we celebrate World Teachers’ Day, let us also remember those former teachers who had also made their mark in the development of our country. 
We, the present generation of teachers, are climbing on their backs, their shoulders and their heads to also make our contributions to Guyana.
We are willing to contribute, we are prepared to contribute, but we too must be respected.

Long live the hardworking teachers of Guyana!
A Happy World Teachers’ Day To You!