Supporting Your Child's Education

Teachers are overworked, poorly compensated, under appreciated and rarely acknowledged.

As Parents, we ask ourselves, how do they do it?

According to 2018 statistics, 148,048 students enrolled in primary schools with 6121 teacher making this a ratio of 24 students per teacher. For Secondary schools, statistics show there are 66127 students enrolled, with 5570 teachers. This comes to 12 students per teacher ratio.

An ideal number, however for parents that have been attending parents meetings & other school events to support our children, it is visible that classes are overcrowded. Two of my children have completed through primary and secondary school, I do not remember one class they were in where class numbers were under 30.

To add to the overwhelming teacher to student ratio, the extra curricular activities including athletics, rugby, netball, swimming and many more, means teachers spend even more time with the students overseeing training, logistics, fundraising etc.

In short, teachers sacrifice a lot of their personal and family time towards supporting and helping their students - Our Children.

In knowing this what can be done to assist teachers in their roles?

Let’s be honest, pay increase? It’s not going to happen.

There are means which we can assist teachers. Below are 3 possible ways we parents, can assist to make the teacher’s numerous responsibilities just a little bit easier.

1. Train our kids well from home; well trained children are easier to teach and make it easier for teachers to spend more time with students that may have difficulty in learning.

2. Attend class meetings and parent’s day; Just showing up at parents meeting tells the teacher that you do care about your child’s education. It’s also an opportunity for the teachers to explain to us a side of our children we sometimes are not aware of. In hearing from some teachers, some parents show up on the first day of school and are never seen again until the last day of school.

3. Support class activities; at times teacher’s may request assistance from parents to support class activities, whether it be teaching resources to assist them or donation of prizes towards their fundraising initiatives. Whether the parents offer support or not, the teachers will continue on, knowing there is no option for them, the classes, the extra curricular activities will go on. Parents can send the children off in the morning and don’t have to deal with them until they get back from school. Teachers on the other hand have to face our children with them all day, five to six days a week.

So, next time you bump into a school teacher, a smile, a simple hello is enough to cheer them up for the day.