LOVE! Happy Valentine's Day!

It is a known fact that St. Valentine's Day is on the 14th of February every year and the theme of this celebration centers on 'love'. Luckily, it's a few days before my birthday and so I get to receive gifts early, feeling loved even more so at this season of sharing love.           

                                   

Many are of the opinion that Valentine's Day is just another day that should not be given any more accolades than necessary because love should be celebrated daily. I do agree with the position that we should endeavour to make the expression of love a lifestyle ritual. However,  I understand that human beings have always done better with a bit of reminders.
I believe that the celebration of love on this special day is more of an advantage than disadvantage to the world especially among families, friendships and humanitarian causes.                    

What bigger reason could there be than for the world to be unified for any cause other than the giving of love.

'Love', a phenomena that captures hearts beyond biases, sentiments, religions, customs and beliefs. Read a brief history of St. Valentine's Day here.  

Today, share and give love. Educators around the world are united on reaching one goal - which is to instill in students the love for lifelong learning. We equally understand that learning could not be permanent if it excluded sharing love.

How to share  Love.

Consider using a time when the whole family is together to share why you love one another. Give each member of your family the opportunity to share a few reasons why they love each member of the family. This makes for great conversation at the dinner table!

Hug often. The old saying that "actions speak louder than words" could not be truer when it comes to showing love and affection. Fortunately, there are endless ways we, as parents, relatives and caregivers show our love every day. In the process, we are strengthening the bond we have with children and promoting their sense of self and confidence.

Help a child through school. Find a kid in your neighbourhood whose life you could change. Support their education in any measure you can. You would be contributing to reducing the number of over 10 million out-of-school children in Nigeria.

So give love... 

Please, Please Watch! Global video: Teaching and learning: Achieving quality for all

Revealing The Global Learning Crisis

At least 250 million of the world's 650 million primary school age children are unable to read, write or do basic mathematics, according to a report commissioned by the U.N. education agency.

The report found that 130 million are in primary school but have not achieved the minimum benchmarks for learning, and almost 120 million have spent little or no time in a classroom including 57 million youngsters who are not attending school.

The independent research team that wrote the report for UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, calculated that the cost of 250 million children around the world not learning translates to a loss for governments of around $129 billion annually.

UNESCO's U.N. representative Vibeke Jensen said this global "learning crisis" is mainly caused by a lack of well-trained teachers, especially in impoverished areas.

"While more children are in school, it's been at the cost of quality," she said at a news conference launching the report. "The issue now is to put the focus on quality."

In a third of countries analyzed by the team, less than 75 percent of the primary school teachers had been trained to meet national standards.

"Teachers have the future of this generation in their hands," UNESCO's Director-General Irina Bokova said in a statement. "We need 5.2 million teachers to be recruited by 2015, and we need to work harder to support them in providing children with their right to a universal, free and quality education."

The report said that ensuring an equal, quality education can increase a country's gross domestic product per capita by 23 percent over 40 years.

Interesting stats! I wrote about the need for more teachers during the 2013 World's Teacher's Day. See post here. 

One thing we can do as concerned stakeholders is to get active about getting kids into school and talking about their education with any chance we get in any local community forum. 

We can also get involved, and play our own role in whatever measure by contributing and or supporting public primary education initiatives and programmes. There is strength in talking about these issues in every relevant (even any) forum and opportunity we get. This builds up the momentum that (combined with our ideas and suggestions already lurking), will add vent to the collective clamoring for the refurbishment, modernization and ultimate reformation of our Teacher Colleges. Our country will progressively advance, as we educate the minds and enable the spirits of our people. Poverty and illiteracy will be reduced with a better education system. From the UN report above, it is clear that the Economies are directly affected by education- it impedes Gross Domestic Product output. 

Encourage a Teacher, Train a Teacher, Support Teacher Education!