Heavenly Father, we bring before You all the teachers throughout this land of ours, and pray that You would guard and guide them in the vital responsibility of educating a new generation of children and young people. We confess Lord, that as a nation we have sought to keep God out of the classroom and separated from school and learning, and we acknowledge that this has only been to our own detriment and a great disservice to the children that are being educated in our school system. Lord, we pray that You would challenge the hearts of our educators to recognise that vulnerabilities of children and to balance discipline with dignity and control with care. Help teachers to be conscious of the need for constructive criticism rather than destructive faultfinding and to offer a motivating environment which embraces fairness, honesty and integrity with appropriate praise. A learning environment where trust is nurtured and not exploited. Lord, we pray that You would raise up teachers with godly standards and unbiased teaching techniques, and we pray that our classrooms and teachers return to the godly principles, which our forefathers held dear. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.