Lowering the bar to become a teacher decried

Dr Massimo Ramaioli advised students to “never stop learning” as the closing ceremony of the third edition of the Habib University Model United Nations kicked off at the HM Habib Auditorium of the varsity on Sunday evening.

These remarks of Dr Massimo, who is an assistant professor at the School of Arts Humanities and Social, were applauded by the audience, which was from schools, colleges, varsities, non-profit and corporate sectors.

“Many of you will win today and many will lose. This will keep happening for the rest of your lives,” he said. “Never take yourself serious. Be self ironic,” he added, ending his short speech to mark the end of the four-day event.

The theme of the Habib Univeristy MUN this year was ‘Cultivating ideas, [And] Engaging in Discourse’, and over 400 delegates attended nine committees focusing on issues of women, indigenous land rights and Middle Eastern and African conflicts.

Speaking as the chief guest, non-profit Durbeen founder and CEO Salma Roy shed light on the importance of teachers and their state in the country. She said that most of the learning comes from the instructor.

“We have progressively lowered the standard of becoming a teacher,” Salma said. “We see that to become a doctor one has to go through a rigorous five-year training but it is not same for a teacher.”

She asked: “Why a human mind is less important?” Discussing the theme, she said that policymaking and including multiple voices in it was a complex process, which did not necessarily reflect reform.

“It is easier to have a closed-door conference and giving all the stakeholders representation, but you can end up having not a single voice in the room which should shake things up,” she said. “We are in a horrible state of stagnation.”

She advised students to have a technical understanding of the issue at hand so they can counter the complexity. “You will realise it is not as simple as you saw it when you will graduate.”

Sharing her experience with Durbeen, Salma said that in her struggle to implement a teacher’s education policy, the resistance came from the lobbies within. “Harvard did not teach me this, but my now understanding of the system did.”