Education unions in Burkina Faso, The Gambia and Uganda are joint recipients of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF/FCE) Norm Goble WTD Award.
Created in 2014, the Norm Goble Award is offered annually to support the World Teachers’ Day (WTD) initiatives of various CTF/FCE foreign partners.
Below are this year’s winners:
- The Gambia Teachers’ Union (GTU)
- Le Syndicat national de enseignants du secondaire et du supérieur (SNESS – Burkina Faso)
- The Uganda National Teachers’ Union (UNATU)
These organizations proposed various activities to highlight the teaching profession in their country and communities on WTD.
One criterion of the award is that plans relate to the CTF/FCE 2023 WTD theme: “Teachers: making sense of our world.” The CTF/FCE will provide each of these national teacher organizations with C$1,500 to support their WTD activities.
Word Teachers’ Day activities planned in Burkina Faso, The Gambia and Uganda
The SNESS hosted a public conference in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, to highlight teachers and the important role they play in the nation’s current struggles against violent extremism and ongoing insecurity. The conference underscored how the teaching profession will continue to adapt its practices to foster critical thinking skills, to further engage parents and communities to respond to urgent needs, and to sharpen its focus on inclusive education.
The GTU organized and hosted radio programs in seven regions throughout The Gambia to celebrate teachers, advocate for quality, equitable, publicly funded education and better working conditions, to establish an environment more conducive to teaching and learning. They also held tree planting activities in four regions to raise awareness about the importance of trees and their role in maintaining an ecological balance, to combat pollution and to provide climate change mitigation. The GTU aims to raise awareness about the role teachers play in shaping the future, and to honour the teaching profession while ensuring that teachers receive credibility, respect and recognition for the work they do.
In Uganda, the UNATU held a national celebration to advocate for increased access to mental health and psychosocial support for teachers. Events included a media campaign, and television and radio talk shows to complement annual weeklong “Appreciate My Teacher” events that began in 2021, involving teachers, students, ministry officials, community members and various stakeholders.
The CTF/FCE WTD award is named after Dr. Norman Goble, who served as the CTF/FCE secretary general from 1970 to 1982, and the general secretary of the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession from 1982 to 1988. Among many other accomplishments, Dr. Goble is credited for his work to create WTD.
Oct. 5 was selected as the date to celebrate teachers because on that same date in 1966, a special intergovernmental conference adopted the UNESCO recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers. In adopting this recommendation, governments unanimously recognized the importance for society to have competent, qualified and motivated teachers.
