On Teachers' Day... How Do We Shape Those Who Shape Our Children?

On Teacher’s Day, we multiply words of gratitude, offer flowers, and recall the beautiful phrase: “Rise for the teacher and honor him with reverence.” Yet the most beautiful tribute to a teacher is not to celebrate him for a single day, but to ask throughout the year: How did we select him? How did we prepare him? And how do we support him in shaping the human being we want for Kuwait?

A teacher is not merely an employee who transmits knowledge; if that were his sole role, artificial intelligence would mark the beginning of the end for him. Machines can explain equations, translate texts, summarize books, and generate exam questions in seconds, but they cannot serve as the role model a child sees every morning, nor can they detect the pain hidden behind a student’s silence, ignite curiosity for knowledge, or instill integrity, belonging, and responsibility.

This is where educational reform begins: by preparing the teacher before designing the curriculum.

Kuwait does not start from scratch. We have the College of Education at Kuwait University, and the Basic Education College, which declares its mission as “Leadership and Excellence in Teacher Preparation,” alongside programs for practical training and internships in real educational settings. Moreover, Kuwaiti education has witnessed, over the years, programs to develop curricula, assessment, school leadership, and professional standards, in collaboration with the World Bank.

However, the existence of teacher preparation colleges is not enough; the question is: Who enters them? And how do they graduate?

Advanced education systems teach us that teacher selection is part of the quality of education itself. Therefore, Kuwait needs to move from accepting education students primarily based on grades and academic averages to a multi-criteria professional selection process: academic achievement, language and communication skills, personality and emotional stability, critical thinking ability, a professional interview, a trial teaching session, followed by genuine field training before final professional licensing.

Another lesson comes from education systems that succeeded because they treated teacher preparation as a serious professional pathway, not merely a means to obtain a certificate. The latest TALIS 2024 results confirm that approximately four out of five teachers in participating systems entered the profession through regular teacher preparation programs. Evidence also shows that training and qualification remain fundamental factors in building professional expertise.

According to TALIS 2024, about one-third of teachers in participating systems use artificial intelligence in teaching, while this figure rises to approximately 75% in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Among those who use AI, roughly 64% employ it primarily for lesson planning, while only about a quarter use it to analyze student performance or evaluate their work.

UNESCO has established a global framework for this transformation, defining 15 competencies for teachers in the age of artificial intelligence, distributed across five domains: human-centered thinking, AI ethics, AI fundamentals and applications, educational use of AI, and its use in professional development. Notably, the starting point is not technological, but human.

Reform begins by redefining admission criteria for colleges of education, reviewing their programs according to the best global standards, increasing in-school training, and then establishing a professional teaching license that is not merely a paper-based exam, but an assessment of knowledge, personality, classroom skills, professional ethics, and digital competence. The license is renewed through professional development, with clear career pathways from teacher to senior teacher to expert teacher, and with rewards for genuine excellence in the classroom.

I also propose that Kuwait’s teacher preparation colleges adopt UNESCO’s AI framework, so that every graduate knows how to use technology for planning, assessment, and personalized instruction, while also knowing when not to use it.

On Teacher’s Day, perhaps the most beautiful gift we can offer him is not merely to say, “Thank you, teacher,” but to build a system that selects the best people for this noble mission, provides them with the finest training, and places the most advanced tools in their hands.

Because when we choose teachers well, we are not merely appointing an employee for forty years; we are selecting those who will help shape forty generations of Kuwaiti children.