The word ‘pupil’ is used in its true dictionary sense….a person who is being taught something by a teacher. [4. There’s a Pupil in the Middle of Your Eye]

It applies to all ages and implies an interaction between a teacher and a learner.  Schools are places that are especially constructed for deliberate teacher-pupil learning exchanges.  It is a contract …Teacher: “I will teach; you will learn.”  Pupil: “I will learn; you will teach”. Schools cater for pupils from Year One to Year Twelve; and every client in them for the full period is a pupil whenever the teaching-learning act is going on. If each becomes a developing student in the long run, the schooling processes are working.

Schools are the insurance centres of a country’s future.  For good reasons, children are required by law to attend them.  The country wants to make sure of its future.  A country’s greatness is judged by the way it treats its children.  If quality schooling isn’t its first priority, what is?

It’s the quality of the interaction between teacher and pupil that ensures real learning progress.  Most countries entrust their tertiary institutions to prepare teachers well, so that the dominant partner in the learning exchange at the primary school level knows all the tricks of the trade and has an expansive repertoire of techniques [see below].  It expects, more than anything else, that the teacher-preparation places will help neophyte teachers to learn how to teach.  Schools will develop individual teaching styles further.

Each country expects all teachers to be good at their job, to try to learn more about their job and to work hard at helping their pupils to develop their learning potential.  However, those who treat such a profession just as a job should not be there.  They can do too much damage; and systems should make it easy for them to exit or to exit them.