World Teachers' Day: How educators are celebrated in different countries around the world
In Estonia, teachers get to go home while students carry out lessons alone
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Your support makes all the difference.World Teacher’s Day commemorates a global document - first adopted in 1996 - which sets out the rights and responsibilities of teachers.
Google has celebrated the day with a Doodle which features a spectacle-wearing multitasking octopus in front of a blackboard.
World Teachers' Day, which falls on 5 October every year, aims to focus on “appreciating, assessing and improving the educators of the world”.
The theme this year is “Young Teachers: The Future of the Profession” and organisers are drawing attention to the need to think about ways to draw “the brightest minds and young talents in the profession”.
And countries across the world choose to celebrate their own educators in a wide range of ways on various dates throughout the year.
In Estonia, teachers are so revered that some of them get to go home, while students carry out the lessons by themselves.
In Vietnam, where the day is celebrated on 20 November, when students often pay a visit to their teachers’ homes to give them presents and flowers, throw parties at their schools or arrange outings.
Events on 5 September in India commemorate the birthday of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan – a philosopher who was the country's second president.
Radhakrishnan, widely deemed one of the most important Indian intellectuals of the 20th century, once reportedly asked former Soviet Union ruler Joseph Stalin: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?”
Teacher’s Day, which has been celebrated in India since 1962, sees teachers and students hold celebrations at schools to commemorate teachers' contributions to society. Senior students swap places with the teachers in some schools to demonstrate their gratitude.
The day falls on the 28 March in the Czech Republic to mark the birthday of John Amos Comenius – a Czech educational reformer and philosopher deemed to be the father of modern education.
Pupils in the country elect the teacher which they are most inspired by to the Zlaty Amos (Golden Amos) competition.
Teacher’s Day is on 1 December in Panama and pays tribute to the birth date of Manuel Jose Hurtado – a civil engineer and educator deemed to be the father of education in the Central American country.
He set up the first public schools and teachers' colleges in an attempt to raise literacy levels and tackle endemic deprivation.
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