World Teachers’ Day 2009: “Build the future: invest in teachers now!”

Paris, 5 October

Globally, 10.3 million teachers − 1.3 million teachers each year − need to be recruited over eight years (2007-2015) just to provide universal primary education by 2015, according to new figures released by UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics on World Teachers’ Day, celebrated on 5 October.

This year, World Teachers’ Day puts the spotlight on the global teacher shortage and the challenge of increasing the teaching force and its capacity to provide quality education, at a time when the financial and economic crisis is placing increasing strain on education budgets.

“Many countries are making tremendous efforts to meet educational goals,” said Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO. “But they will not make it without recruiting and training many more teachers. We cannot let the financial and economic crisis cut into education budgets. Lower spending on education will have dramatic short and long-term consequences on the quality of education.”

“This is a crucial period to keep our pledges,” he continued. “I am deeply concerned about the 22% drop in aid to basic education observed between 2006 and 2007. Further cuts in aid could seriously threaten progress made since 2000 in many low income countries, especially in Africa, where the teacher shortage is the most acute.”

Twenty-six out of 45 countries in sub-Saharan Africa face a critical teacher gap, according to new projections from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. In these countries, 2.6 million teachers were in the classrooms in 2007. This number must grow to 3.7 million in just eight years to meet the UPE goal by 2015. This means that for every two teachers teaching in 2007 in the region, there must be three in 2015. The Central African Republic, for example, would have to expand its teaching forces by 18.5% each year in order to ensure that there are enough teachers in the classroom by 2015. Teacher gaps are also severe in Eritrea (15.9%), followed by Chad (13.8%), Niger (12.5%), and Burkina Faso (12.0%).

“Learning conditions are already very tough in many countries,” added Nicholas Burnett, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education. “Higher pupil-teacher ratios, heavier workloads for teachers, freezes on their recruitment and lack of training could aggravate the quality deficit that already exists. We cannot build the economic recovery without investing in education, and especially not without investing in teachers, the most important influence on student achievement.”

In a joint statement, the chief executives of UNESCO, ILO, UNDP, UNICEF and Education International draw attention to the high expectations and demands placed on teachers today: “The 21st century calls for new approaches to learning, innovative thinking, the acquisition of specific knowledge about the environment, health and citizenship and the promotion of ethical values and attitudes. The ability of education systems to respond effectively to the needs of today’s learners depends largely on the action that is taken now to recruit, train and support teachers and to ensure decent work for them.”

To mark World Teachers’ Day, UNESCO’s Education Sector is organizing a conference in Paris (9.30 a.m.-1.30 p.m., Room X, Fontenoy building) that will consider the implications of expanding and strengthening the global teaching force in the current economic context. In the first of two round tables, UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics will present data that illustrates the teacher gap and highlights key considerations for meeting the goals of Education for All (EFA). In the second round table, teachers from Africa, Asia and Europe will speak about their daily work experience and the challenges of being a teacher today.

Initial evidence collected by UNESCO indicates that governments of developing countries are making real efforts to protect education budgets. But the effects of the crisis are not yet fully reflected in finance statistics, namely public spending on education in 2009. Sharp drops in fiscal revenue and the prospect of reduced external aid could seriously undermine the ability of countries to sustain educational expansion and maintain quality.

The UNESCO survey shows that Mexico, for example, is among countries to have introduced a stimulus package that provides for improving educational infrastructure, while Egypt has voted a budget that increases education expenditure. Ghana, however, has frozen teacher recruitment and Pakistan has cut its budget for elementary education.

According to Education International, the global union federation representing 30 million teachers and education workers in 172 countries, countries in Central and Eastern Europe have been particularly hard hit by the crisis. A survey conducted in the region reports delayed payment of salaries in Romania and salary reductions in Latvia, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

To assist countries in improving teacher policies, UNESCO launched its Teacher Training Initiative for sub-Saharan Africa (TTISSA) in 2006. TTISSA has now developed a Teacher Policy Development Toolkit to help countries conduct a national diagnosis of their needs, the basis for developing comprehensive policies. The methodological guide enables countries to map the situation of teachers by analyzing areas such as recruitment, education, deployment, absenteeism, remuneration and status. It also looks at the broader professional and social context. The Toolkit was tested in Benin and Uganda in 2009 and will be published at the end of this year.

World Teachers’ Day, held annually on 5 October since 1994, commemorates the anniversary of the signing in 1966 of the UNESCO/ILO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers. It celebrates the essential role of teachers in providing quality education at all levels.

• Author(s):UNESCOPRESS
• Source:Press release No. 2009-110
• 06-10-2009