The teacher is a pivot around which the whole system of education revolves. The teacher must be a dedicated person. His code of ethics encourages him to be self-sacrificing, finding pleasure and joy in nurturing young minds and the persons living in the society, inspiring the right attitudes in the students towards themselves, society and the country.
The teacher has always been regarded as a nation-builder. He is always anxious to see that each of its products (students) is facilitated with the practical know-how of leading a dignified, harmonious and balanced life. Pupils learn the art of successful living in the school. The teacher helps them in this respect. By virtue of his position, he can bring constructive changes among the children.
So he must be aware of the implications of times – the social forces and conditions influencing the educational endeavor. He should study the changes in society and be able to identify the societal ingredients that have implications for education.
The world, today, is a rapidly changing world. New goals are being set up to achieve the readjustment of society to new situations. Population growth is becoming serious problem for most of the countries and it is the teacher who can develop its awareness amongst his pupils. He is in a much better position to strengthen the capacity of the pupils, within his area of professional expertise, to deal with population issues. He can give training for bringing about attitudinal changes in others.
In some countries, like Pakistan population questions are especially sensitive areas on account of past traditions, customs, religions & cultural bindings. Teacher is the key person who can overcome such difficulties or problems.
The teacher can integrate population education with other subject areas so as to draw a specific picture concerning specific population issues and problems. He can emphasize the concepts of the family as unit, the family composition and child rearing practices that contribute to family size and the idea that a small family helps healthy relationship within a family.
The teacher may explain the effect of rapid population growth by relating the national economic situation to that of the individual’s situation. The problems of adjustment in life, too, be exemplified.
The adoption of the small family norm, the importance of interpersonal human relationships and other basic values concerning the individuals, the family and the community can also be a component part of the teacher’s program to bring the desired change in the pupils.
Since teachers’ are the ambassadors from a variety of socio-cultural groups, they can take their knowledge of population education back to their pupils and educate them about population-related issues and problems.
Basically a teacher is a key person who provides the information to his students so as to meet his future requirements. The teacher can effectively convey the content/concept to the children if he has knowledge about the effect of population on socio-economic conditions and is convinced that population education is a necessary concern of today.
For example, if a teacher is not clear about ‘population education’ concepts and he is not convinced with the importance of the theme it would not be possible for him to teach it to the audience. So it is necessary for a teacher, who is assigned the job of teaching population education concepts, to be able to have full knowledge about the historical background of emerging population education concepts. He should know the techniques of conveying the message of population education effectively and efficiently.
- He should have the latest knowledge about the population growth rate, existing facilities i.e education, health, food and housing for the population, responsibilities of the parents for meeting the requirements of their children about education, food, shelter, clothing, and other facilities.
- He should keep his eyes on the current population changes and its effect on society. He should discuss the population problems with his students. He must encourage his students to conduct surveys about the family requirements. He should compare the requirements of a small family with that of a large.
- One important role the teacher can play is that he should bring a positive change among the parents/children/society so that they may think about the population problems and their effects on the quality of life.
In brief, since the teacher is a person who has a great influence on the people and receives respect from them for the job he does, therefore he should be given up-to-date knowledge about population education and be encouraged to serve the people waving problems related to family planning and health etc.