By Prof. Dr Obiora Ike, Executive Director, Globethics.net
The month of October this year is filled with events around the world and at the United Nations that focus on the place of Ethics in Action and in Education. World Teachers Day is celebrated on 5 October WorldTeachersDay with the theme - 'The right to education means the right to qualified teachers'. This has been chosen to mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which recognises education as a fundamental human right.
On 17 October Global Ethics Day is devoted to Ethics in Action, with a focus at Globethicss.net on Ethics in Teaching, a dimension that promotes the acquisition of both knowledge and character. The teacher in the classroom holds the key to what children, youth and students learn and know as they engage with the world. The teacher can be both a model and a mentor as well as a knowledge transmitter.
Another event that makes the month of October so important is taking place in the last week, starting on 22 October. It has been declared by the United Nations as Open Access Week with the theme 'Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge'.
This is why Globethics.net has devoted this current edition of our Newsletter, dear readers to the events surrounding our efforts at Teaching and Doing Ethics globally. We, as well as UNESCO, believe that the right to education cannot be achieved without access to trained and qualified teachers. Society has entrusted teachers with the role of educating the young – citizens of the future to be well-equipped with skills and knowledge, founded on solid human principles that convey ethically accepted codes of conduct, truth about life and mentoring that are not just mere subjective opinions.
