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ACOUNTRY may be endowed with resources, but it requires quality education to help it harness this wealth to benefit humanity. Education, as UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon once said, is the “single best investment” that countries can make to build “prosperous, healthy and equitable societies”.

Nowhere is this insight more relevant than in Tanzania, where large-scale investment in education has enabled significant gains in literacy, school attendance and university enrolment.

But this great nation has a long way to go. We cannot rule out teachers as the bedrock in the provision of quality pupils in every human community since they play a key role in the development of human resources.

However, Tanzanian teachers need to redeem their sinking image; damaged by absenteeism, lateness, irregularity, apathy and lack of commitment. These are but a few bottlenecks that need to be addressed to ensure sanity in the noble profession.

Teachers must heal the wounds to uplift their image and be proud to be part of the success story in quality education delivery. The most frustrating moment in a child’s educational career is to be without a teacher.

There are indications that in some of our classrooms, especially in the rural areas, there are no teachers. The children in such communities cannot develop to the fullest potential of becoming indispensable assets to the nation.

Teachers should not rest on their oars, because “he who rests, rusts”.

The vision of our education policy is to produce competent people committed to the development of the country.

Effective schooling requires discipline and good moral conduct.