South Sudan: The Importance and Responsibilities of Teachers in the Society

By Ustaz John Garang Ayii Riak, Juba, South Sudan

Tuesday, March 10, 2020 (PW) — Many scholars defined teachers in many ways, but they have all agreed that teachers are producers of all the professionals in all the fields of specialization. In some contexts, a teacher is called an educator or instructor who helps others to acquire knowledge, competences or values to become responsible human being in future. Instructors in post-secondary institutions might be called teachers, instructors, or professors, depending on the type of institution they teach in. In addition; Teacher is a person who gives not only the knowledge, but also inspiration to life. To move, a teacher is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue.

To add on the list, teacher knows about the student’s ability and shapes his/ her life according to that ability, and a great teacher is just as rare as greatness in medicine (John G. Ayii 2018). Furthermore, teachers are protagonists of Transformation in Education Sector for Nation Development because there are good teachers, they can teach the youths and they can speed up the national development if the acquired the best education which is matching with the 21^st contemporarily solutions for massive education’s challenges. According to Solomon Ortiz said that, “Teachers are our greatest public servants; they spend their lives educating our young people and shaping our nation for tomorrow.” Solomon Ortiz

Besides, that above, a teacher is the one who provides a best model of future generation to her nation through proper education and teaching are the only way to remove social issues, for example corruption and injustices from the nation which ultimately leads to the real growth and development of a nation. Teachers are an important part of our society, they don’t only teach students how to read, write, and calculate math problems, but they do so much more. In most cases, the position of a teacher is very important in the society for it disseminates important messages and vital information through learning and teaching domains which are pertinent to professional and intellectual development.

Teaching and being a teacher is a good job as elucidated by Ustaz Abraham Mabior Rioc (2019) that, “the teaching profession in some countries, especially the developing nations, has often been ignored in terms of allocation of enough educational resources to meet the societal goals of quality education. As a result, this renders the profession less desirable when it comes to national intake quota and also contributes to low morale among instructors at all levels of education.” Even though, teachers are not getting enough pays for the good work they do. There are some reasons why teachers need to be given more remuneration. Teachers do one of the most essential jobs in the world by educating future workers and leaders.

Despites, the hardest nature of their job, there is a widespread disparity in the average teacher payment in different countries and it is worse when comes to South Sudan. The teaching career in some of nations, specifically the developing countries, has frequently been overlooked in rapports of distribution of adequate educational capitals to encounter the social objectives of excellence education outcomes. For instances, this makes the profession underestimated when it comes to national intake quota as per courses and also contributes to leads to interest among teachers and lecturers at all levels of education.

For this reason, the teaching career remains to miss it’s excellent and well trained, qualified teachers to other sectors despite the vital roles they play in the nation building. The duties of a teacher are neither few nor small, but they elevate the mind and give energy to the character. To maintain qualified teachers in the education sector, then teacher salary need to be doubled compare to other professional because of the following reasons;

They work outside of the classroom; in most other occupations, workers do not take their work home. Teachers, on the other hand, have to take their work home. They have to spend hours coming up with lesson plans that will engage students. They also have to spend time grading their learners’ assignments, tests, and quizzes and because they do not have time out of their day to spend doing this, they have to take their work home. If you take into account the average teacher’s salary and the hours they spend at work, they could probably make more money being an hourly wage employee.

They do more than teach; Teachers do more than just teach students how to read, write, and solve math questions. They teach learners how to be good citizens by teaching them to endure when things do not go as planned. When a learner gets low scores on a examination, they may understand what they did not do the best on and do better on the next test. They also teach learners what is right or wrong by teaching students not to cheat on test, assignments, or quizzes, as cheating devalues the learning process.

They make an impact; Teaching is a profession that makes an impact. Teachers make an impact on students’ lives every day. During my education career, there have been many teachers who have made an impact on me and helped me get to where I am now. I do not think that inspiring teachers should be underpaid. They make a huge impact on each and every one of their students and they need to be acknowledged for it.

Education should be valued; Education should be very important in our country. By underpaying teachers, we as a country are not placing education as a high priority. Teachers are the foundation of our education system. If we did not have good teachers to teach our children, then our education system would be in crumbles. Our students would not know how to read, write, or do math problems. We would be a society where we would not know how to do anything. Teachers should be respected for their in our education system.

We will have no teachers; many people know that teachers are underpaid. No one wants to have a job that underpays and undervalues them. Many teachers are leaving teaching jobs to NGO, and pursuing other careers because of being underpaid. Many people are also not pursuing a career in teaching because they do not want to be underpaid for the work they are doing. If we do not have people who are pursuing careers in teaching or education, then eventually we will not have enough teachers to educate our students.

Teachers are an important part of our society. If we underpay them we are not valuing them for how important they really are. They teach our students, inspire our students, and look after our students. We as a country need to put our priority in education. To do this, government need to start by paying our teachers more and giving them credit for all that they do. Higher Pay Leads to Smarter Teachers,when teachers have higher cognitive skills, their students perform better academically.

Proponents of increased teacher pay argue that teachers are underpaid for the hard work of educating children and paying teachers more will improve the recruitment and retention of well-qualified teachers. Other proponents of increasing teacher pay say teacher remunerations have not improved at the rates seen in other careers and while beginning teacher salaries are not awfully little, the growth of a teacher’s salary throughout his/her profession pales in comparison to most other occupations.

Without high standards for teachers, high level of respect and trust for the career, and an overall passion for teaching the next generation of the Republic of South Sudan we will not be transformed. Teachers in Germany have the top pay salary in the country more than judges, doctors, engineers and other professionals and when Judges, Doctors & engineers asked the chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel for the same salary, she told them “how can I compare you to those who taught you? You doctors and engineers plus other professionals your salary will be less than that one of the teachers because they are producers of professionals and teachers are protagonists of transformation in education Sector for nation development, as it is being by Guy Kawasaki that “If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers, because they are society’s heroes.”

I have seen three group of people in their professions who are doing works and they are pay less compared to their jobs and these groups are; (a). Soldiers who always walk and sleep in the thicker forests and bitten by mosquitoes trying to protects citizens from both internal and external attacks and reduce crimes in the nation, (b). Teachers who stands for more than 6 hours a day talking until their voice get dried up and (c). Pastors or Reverences/ Spiritual Evangelists who stands for also 6 hours during evangelisms trying to change people lives from wickedness to righteousness.

Therefore, teachers must be respected the government and its educational partners to strategize on the professional development of teachers from all levels of education so as to build sustainable and self-reliant societies through education. Teachers are despised by parents, authorities and students as well unknowingly that they are the backbone of our struggle in terms of information and education, which are the power we need in our national building struggle. Without prioritizing teaching career, enlightening and sensitizing population about dangers of illiteracy, we would lose direction in the process of national building, (John G. Ayii Dec 14, 2017).

My favorite Philosopher called Aristotle once time said that, “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those arts of living well.” My last message to my fellow teachers, you must teach students well, whether you are pay well or not because teaching is a call from God to serve the entire nation as Jeannette Walls said that, “Teaching is calling and I have always thought that teachers in their way are holy-angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.”

I must reveal this bad news to the public that government schools will collapse soon or later, if we don’t allocate more funds to education sector more teachers from the few we have, will desert their teaching professions to join either private schools or NGOs based on the low payments for teachers. Therefore, if we really need a better education in South Sudan, Government should increase teachers’ salary and introduce some allowances in order to boost teachers’ morale. Education is the best weapon to fight poverty, if we need development of our newest nation because there is no country that can develop without good education system, as it is said that, the quality of an education cannot exceed the quality of its’ teachers because the education system can be measured by the quality of what goes in the class.

Therefore, Government should improve teachers’ welfares to maneuver on the professional development of teachers from all levels of education right away from ECD to HEIs, so as to bring sustainable development to the nation through education. 

The author, Ustaz John Garang Ayii Riak, is an educationist holding Bachelor of Arts with Education, from Bugema University, Kampala Uganda. Pursuing a Master’s Degree in Comparative Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Zhejiang Province, and East China. He is a Teaching Assistant at Dr. John Garang Memorial University of Science and Technology in Bor. And can be reached at: (johngayii2014@gmail.com) N.B: The opinion expressed here is solely the view of the writer. The veracity of any claim made is the responsibility of the author, not PaanLuel Wël.

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