World Teachers' Day 2023

 THE TEACHERS WE NEED FOR THE EDUCATION WE WANT!

Credits: UNESCO

THE TEACHERS WE NEED FOR THE EDUCATION WE WANT: THE GLOBAL IMPERATIVE TO REVERSE THE TEACHER SHORTAGE.

“Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.”

 Japanese Proverb

If we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, in particular the goal of   achieving   equitable   and   quality   education,   we   need   relevant   and   innovative   pedagogies that prepare the learners of today for the transformation needed by society in a rapidly changing world. 

Teachers are one of the pillars on which this transformation depends.Research has repeatedly found that teachers are the single most important school-level variable  for  improving  student  outcomes.  The  centrality  of  teachers  to  the  future  of  education  was  reaffirmed  at  the  United  Nations  Transforming  Education  Summit  last  year,  culminating  in  the  establishment  of  the  High-Level  Panel  on  the  Teaching  Profession.  This  renewed  focus  on  teachers  is  timely,  as  the  world  currently  faces  a  severe global teacher shortage.

Halfway  to  the  Sustainable  Development  Goals,  44  million  teachers  still  need  to  be  recruited globally to meet universal primary and secondary education needs by 2030, with 15 million of those required in sub-Saharan Africa, according to newly released data from UNESCO and the Teacher Task Force. Rural, marginalized, and forcibly displaced communities often face the most chronic shortages of qualified teachers.

The fundamental cause of this global shortage is the diminishing attractiveness of the teaching profession, which undermines the recruitment of new teachers and produces high levels of attrition amongst those in service, especially within the first three to five years  of  entering  the  workforce.  Teachers  can  typically  expect  to  be  paid  less  than  if  they entered other professions requiring similar levels of qualification, whilst also finding themselves increasingly overburdened by additional responsibilities and administrative tasks. 

Due to these poor working conditions, teaching is often viewed negatively as a ‘profession of last resort’, and teachers are not given the recognition and status that they deserve.The report from the International Commission on the Futures of Education – Reimagining our  Futures  Together:  A  new  social  contract  for  education  –  recommends  that  the  teaching profession be reimagined as a collaborative profession. To do so, it is essential to shift the way in which we perceive teachers: they should be valued as key agents in renewing the social contract for education. 

Teachers are lifelong learners, catalysts for change, creators and facilitators of knowledge, and mentors who engage students and support them in understanding the complex challenges and realities of our world today.

Today,  on  World  Teachers’  Day,  we  celebrate  teachers’  critical  role  and  the  great  importance of reversing the global teacher shortage. We call upon countries to ensure that teaching is transformed everywhere into a more attractive and valorised profession where  teachers  are  valued,  trusted,  and  adequately  supported  to  meet  the  needs  of  every learner. Bold actions must be taken, if we are to reverse the current decline and successfully increase teacher numbers.

Credits: Joint Message from UNESCO and UNICEF