Teachers hold key to empower next generation — Prof. Afari

The Director of Educational Studies at the GNAT Institute for Research and Industrial Relations Studies (IRIRS), Prof. Yaw Afari, says teachers have crucial roles to play in the empowerment of the next generation of Ghanaians in the areas of peacebuilding and democratic governance.

He said although the usefulness of the next generation would be felt in the future, they could be felt in the democratic process and peacebuilding now and, therefore, the teacher had a role to play in that direction.

“If teachers have to empower a generation, then it means that the teacher component is very vital. We are talking about democratic governance, we are talking about peacebuilding; these are things that we want to entrench in our society,” Prof. Afari said when he spoke on the topic,

“The Role of the Pre-tertiary Teacher in Peacebuilding and Democratic Governance” at the 76th New Year School held at the University of Ghana, Legon, last Wednesday. 
It was on the theme: “Empowering the Next Generation”.

Key areas

Prof. Afari outlined four key areas that the teacher should look at for his empowerment of the next generation.

The first, he said, was promoting civic education on peacebuilding and democratic governance and that, “If every teacher does this in every course that he or she handles, it means that much of this entrenchment will be felt all over.”

That, Prof. Afari said, was because the teacher, especially the pre-tertiary teacher for that matter, was found everywhere across the length and breadth of the country.

He said if civic education was incorporated into other subjects, aside from social studies, it would be easier to make children feel the need to maintain peace and be involved in the democratic processes.  

“Here, we are saying that if we incorporate civic education not the NCCE but the one that happens in the school, not only through the social studies course but also in all the courses that we teach, whether it is mathematics, whether it is language and literacy, whether it is geography, whether it is music, it is going to be very easy for us to make the children feel the need to maintain peace wherever they are and also to be involved in democratic processes,” he emphasised. 

Rights

With that, Prof. Afari said children would know their human rights, democratic values, values that enhance togetherness, cooperation, networking and also critical thinking in areas that enable the citizenry to work together.

Another area teachers could empower the next generation was to foster peace-building and conflict resolution within the school and learning environment.

The school, he said, was also a community or a society where different human beings gathered and so teachers should, in the first place, teach how to handle conflicts by teaching some basic conflict resolutions or management skills, equipping them (children) with these skills and basic rudimentary skills to mediate in case some of them were involved.

Partnership

Building school partnerships and collaborations, Prof. Afari said, was another area that could be looked at with teachers facilitating the process of collaborating and partnering  local authorities, traditional leaders and community organisations so they used that as a process to promote peace-building and democratic governance.

“Then they will also help learners to engage in networking with other schools and then they will also help in promoting empathy, fellow feeling among themselves, so that they will be able to appreciate the diverse personalities that they encounter in the school.

“You see, whether we like it or not, there are individual differences. Individuals have their different characteristics - how they engage, how they relate, how they talk, and how they do their things,” he said.