Education systems are only as good as their teachers, and therefore, UNESCO had called on Pakistan as early as 2016 to boost its teacher recruitment rate by at least six per cent if it was serious about achieving the sustainable development goal of universal primary education. One may believe a lot to have changed since then, especially as every government hurries to put on a grand song and dance about education reforms. Still, the sight of millions of out-of-school children and worrying revelation about the quality offered to those who manage to get in underscore that the needle did not move in the last decade. In a recent development, a measly 80 out of 43,000 teachers in Punjab dared to sit for a Traning Needs Assessment Test due to apparent fear of failure. According to the teachers union, this complete strike stemmed from the fact that the government, in its desperation to throw baggage over the side, would remove whoever did not pass the test. Notwithstanding the conflicting statements, shouldn’t teachers, who are supposed to be the torchbearers of knowledge and wisdom, think about the poor reflections of their cowardice? In light of repeated analyses that find almost half of the school-going children performing far below their potential, should the most critical responsibility of fashioning the country’s future architects be given to hands, who are clearly unsure of their capabilities? Without competent and motivated teachers, the quality of education is compromised, leading to a generation of ill-prepared individuals to compete with the world. We often talk about the hollowness of the state’s lofty agenda when it proclaims a mission to address the education emergency but from the looks of it, unless the basic units are unwilling to strive for excellence, how on god’s green earth can the education system prosper? All this is, by no means, a critique of the commitment of innumerable teachers, who, despite the humble means and little acknowledgement, find motivation riding on the gratification they get from developing potential in their students. But to truly change roads and start moving towards the finish line, we can no longer sit back and expect the government bodies to utter the magic word. We need a thriving model to replace the tried-and-tested surviving model. *