Teachers and Mentors Day Celebrated at Turkiston Palace Teachers and mentors working selflessly and on their own initiative in the name of fostering a comprehensively advanced younger generation are regarded with great respect and honor in Uzbekistan. The 1st of October has been widely celebrated in our country as the Day of Teachers and Mentors, speaking of the steadily growing authority and the well-deserved esteem for the thorny yet rather honorable labor of the representatives of this highly responsible occupation.
Officials in the education sphere, the best teachers and tutors laid wreath September 30 to the Monument of Independence and Humanism, a symbol of our freedom, bright future and noble aspirations. They were introduced to the modern facilities, education, cultural-enlightenment, sporting-healthcare institutions erected on the initiative of the head of our state in the capital Tashkent.
Personnel of general education schools, of secondary special and higher education institutions, officials of ministries and other government agencies as well as social organizations took part in a festive event at the metropolitan Turkiston Palace occasioned to the Day of Teachers and Mentors.
The President’s State Advisor Kh.Sultanov read out the congratulatory message of President Islam Karimov addressed to teachers and mentors of the entire Uzbekistan.
It was especially stressed at the event that a particular significance has from the first day of independence attached under the leadership of the head of our state to the cardinal transformation of the education sphere as the critical means of nurturing a comprehensively advanced generation and training qualified specialists. The extensive implementation of the Education Act and the National Program for Training Specialists as well as the measures being taken to further these ends have shaped a bedrock for the system of upbringing a young generation who is inferior to no one in anything.
In accordance with the National Program for the Development of School Education, practically all the functioning schools in the country have undergone capital reconstruction, while hundreds of new ones have been built. Wide-ranging efforts are currently underway to bolster the material and technical capacities and activities of preschool education institutions in line with requirements of the time, of specialized boarding schools, the Barkamol Avlod children’s centers, children’s and youths’ sports schools, children’s music and arts schools, institutions of retraining pedagogical cadres.
The state-of-the-art information and communication technologies and methods of distance learning are being introduced currently with growing intensity and extent. This requires boosting the attention paid to training and retraining educators capable of using effectively the advanced pedagogical technologies and interactive methods in their work, of satisfying the interest and demand of schoolchildren in modern forms of education.
To further these goals, special emphasis is placed to uplifting the professional mastery of educators, creating all the conditions and opportunities for their effective activities and their comprehensive support and stimulation. Thanks to these and other endeavors, hundreds of teachers and mentors of the system of public education, higher and secondary special education have for past years been awarded honorable titles, Orders and medals, including the title of the Hero of Uzbekistan.
“In the years of independence, the attitude to the work of teachers – representatives of the honored and the particularly responsible occupation – has changed to a radical extent,” says Shukurjon Mamatkulov, director of the Altynkul College of Economics in Andijan Region, Hero of Uzbekistan. “The huge attention of the President of our country to the work of teachers and mentors obliges us to preserve the independence as the apple of the eye and nurture comprehensively advanced and healthy children.”
As a result of the measures taken in order to stimulate the labor of personnel in the sphere, their average salary size has increased nine-fold as compared to indicators of 1 September 2006.
The 10 December 2012 resolution of the head of our state on measures to further refine the system of learning foreign languages facilitates the teaching of foreign languages cashing in the cutting-edge pedagogical and information-communication technologies, elevating the effectiveness of the system of training specialists commanding foreign languages, and consolidating the international cooperation in the sphere. Owing to joint efforts of the Uzbek State University of World Languages and a number of partner organizations, projects are being implemented successfully to retrain and boost the professional qualification of teachers of English, German, and French of all general education schools. By the start of the 2014/2015 academic year, the need of foreign language teachers was analyzed and corresponding actions were undertaken to retrain them and uplift their pedagogical workload to the 1.5 wage rate.
Foreign language teachers regularly pass attestation at the State Testing Center. Educators of foreign languages in rural schools receive 30 percent bonus allowance to their monthly wage, while others are rewarded with 15 percent bonus. Care as such urges the representatives of this responsible and honorable profession for constant self-perfection and a greater involvement in the process of upbringing a comprehensively advanced generation.
The traditional presidential gift handed to school fresher containing school bag and educational accessories of 12 titles was this year added by textbooks of English, German and French.
The 29 September 2014 Decree of the President rewarded a group of teachers and mentors with high awards of the Motherland for their considerable input into the elevation of the intellectual and spiritual potential of our youth, for fostering a healthy and comprehensively advanced generation in the spirit of love for the native land and devotion to the ideas of independence, respect for national and universal values, selflessness and long-standing fruitful work in the sphere of education and upbringing, active participation in public life.
Also, the traditional national show contest “The Year’s Best Teacher of School Discipline”, held by Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Public Education, serves for a worthwhile esteem of the labor of pedagogues. Thanks to the work of enterprising educators who have elaborated their own methodological basis of teaching their own discipline, the level of knowledge of schoolchildren has been growing, as has the general effectiveness of the system of education.
At the festive event, winners of the 2014 contest have been awarded badges “High Achiever in Public Education”, diplomas and memorable gifts.
“The show contest allows for wider popularization of the advanced expertise of the work of enterprising pedagogues with a creative attitude to their cause,” Shirin Niyazmetova, winner of the competition, teacher of the school no.162 in Tashkent’s Chilanzar District, has shared her impressions. “The tremendous care for teachers and tutors urges us to raise our personal responsibility for nurturing a young generation capable of assuming a decisive role in the current and future life of our Motherland.”
As part of the National Program “Year of the Healthy Child”, the public cooperation council “Family-Mahalla-Education Institution” has been established in all the general education schools. That is instrumental in the regular analysis and oversight of the spiritual-enlightenment works, in boosting the interest and aspiration of schoolchildren for knowledge, the complete cover of ninth-graders with subsequent phase of education.
Currently, youths are acquiring knowledge in the majors they have opted for in more than 1.5 thousand academic lyceums and professional colleges equipped in accordance with contemporary education standards. The lyceums and colleges employ experienced and highly qualified pedagogues and tutors, whose work is encouraged properly, and theoretical and practical classes are conducted on the basis of close interaction scheme “college-enterprise”.
In the independent development years the higher education system in the country has been brought into line with international standards and became a two-tier one comprising undergraduate (bachelors) and graduate (masters) degrees.
Speaking at the occasion, director of the specialized boarding school no.4 in Termez, holder of the title “People’s Teacher of Uzbekistan” Shohida Aripova, chief of the Ferghana branch of Uzbekistan’s Union of Writers Enakhon Siddikova, member of the boxing youth team of Uzbekistan and winner of the Second Youth Olympics Bektemir Melikuziev and others pointed out that the extensive reforms undertaken in education, science, spirituality and enlightenment are dedicated to nurture a generation worthy of its Motherland and great ancestors, and extended their gratefulness to the head of our state for a constant attention and care for teachers and mentors.
The official part of the event was followed by a festive concert show of masters of arts and creative youths.
The occasion was attended by Chairman of the Senate of Uzbekistan’s Oliy Majlis I.Sobirov, Speaker of the Legislative Chamber D.Tashmuhamedova, Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan Sh.Mirziyoev.