WORLD TEACHERS' DAY 5 OCTOBER
15 MILLION NEW TEACHERS NEEDED
Paris, 4 October (N°2001-99)
- Unless an estimated 15 million more teachers are hired over the coming
decade, numerous countries will fail to achieve universal basic education by
2015 as solemnly pledged by more than 180 governments a year ago. This warning,
by UNESCO Assistant Director-General John Daniel, comes on the eve of World
Teachers’ Day celebrated around the world on 5 October.
The global teacher shortage is
most acute in Southern Asia and much of Africa, but countries in all regions -
rich and poor alike - are reporting a shortfall. For example, the United
States will have to add an estimated two million new teachers during
this same period, according to Mr Daniel.
In a 2001 World
Teachers’ Day joint message, the heads of UNESCO, UNDP, UNICEF and the ILO
have noted “severe shortages of qualified and experienced teaching staff”
and called for “comprehensive and sustainable solutions (that) give central
importance to the training, recruitment, deployment and retention of motivated,
well-paid and well-resourced professional teachers.”
“The world needs something
like 15 million new teachers in the next 10 years. But obviously you are not
going to recruit millions of new teachers just by adding a few seats in
traditional teacher training establishments,” says Mr Daniel, former head of
the United Kingdom’s Open University. Distance learning for teachers
will play an important role in this process “but distance learning need not
mean reliance on high tech”, he adds. “We often forget that distance
education can be low-tech, relying on radio and other mass media.”
But finding 15 million
candidates may prove to be daunting task. In many countries, the teaching
profession holds little allure for potential recruits because of low pay, poor
working conditions, exposure to violence and lack of prestige.
The nearly 59 million
teachers worldwide represent the single largest group of highly skilled and
educated professionals in the world. In Indonesia, teachers make up fully
half of the entire tertiary-educated work force of that country. In Jordan,
99% of primary school teachers have received a tertiary education.
In addition to highlighting the
paramount role of educators - two-thirds of whom are in developing countries -
World Teachers’ Day seeks to focus attention on the stark challenges facing
the teaching profession globally, from the AIDS pandemic, to school violence, to
poor salaries and working conditions.
UNESCO statistics -
including those compiled jointly with the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) in the recently published Teachers for Tomorrow’s
Schools - shed light on these issues: …./….
The joint message
for 2001 World Teachers’ Day urges all Member States to follow through on the
commitment made at the World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, in April
2000, to enhance the status, morale and professionalism of teachers.
· Annual worldwide
education spending is estimated today at US$1,000 billion, with a
“market” of some one billion students worldwide. Private education is
making major in-roads in the developed and developing world. For instance,
an estimated 40% of education spending in Chile, Peru, the Philippines
and Thailand is privately funded.
· Teacher salaries
in developing countries typically take up two-thirds or more of education
budgets, and in some case go up to 90%.
· An estimated 78%
of women in Afghanistan cannot read or write, and girls are denied
the right to an education. Worldwide, an estimated 580 million women and
girls (two-thirds of the total worldwide illiterate population) cannot read
· The HIV/AIDS
pandemic threatens to wipe out much of the progress made in boosting
literacy and general education levels. In some African countries, more
teachers are dying of AIDS than are entering the school system. In Zambia,
for example, more than 100 teachers died per month on average in 1998. In Zimbabwe,
a study of commercial farms showed that 48% of primary-school-age AIDS
orphans and all secondary-school-age AIDS orphans had dropped out of the
· Salaries, and the
likelihood of salary increases, over the course of a career can be decisive
in leading qualified individuals to enter and remain in the teaching
profession. In Thailand, an experienced primary school teacher at the
top of the salary scale earns almost five times as much as an entry level
colleague. In Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia and Jordan,
maximum salaries are between 2.3 and 3.4 times higher than starting
salaries. In Peru, by contrast, salaries do not change over the
course of a career for those with minimum training. In Chile, the Philippines
and Tunisia, increases average only 15-50%.
· In Paraguay
and the Russian Federation teachers in primary schools average less
than 700 hours of teaching per year compared to 1200 or more hours in Indonesia
and Sri Lanka.
· To earn full-time
salaries, primary school teachers are required to work 44 hours per week in Norway
and the Republic of Korea, 38 hours in the Netherlands, 35 in Thailand,
32.5 in Malaysia, 22.5 in Argentina.
· In an effort to
broaden enrolment in primary schools, many countries must balance the need
to hire more teachers with the need to maintain teacher qualification
standards. Fewer than a quarter of Egyptian and Brazilian
primary school teachers today hold a tertiary qualification. In Tunisia,
only 14 per cent of primary teachers have a tertiary qualification.
· Quality education
means more than the recruitment of qualified teachers in sufficient numbers.
According to a survey, over 80% of students in the Russian Federation,
Thailand and Tunisia are enrolled in schools that have
reported “a lot” of problems with the availability of teaching
· In Brazil, Paraguay,
the Philippines and Zimbabwe, between 30% and 50% of students
of secondary-school-age are enrolled into primary schools as repeaters or
late entrants. Managing classrooms with students of different ages and
levels requires comparatively greater skills. …./….
· The size of the
teaching force in OECD countries - all of which have achieved universal
primary education - is likely to decline in the years ahead as a result of
demographic factors except in Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg
UNESCO provides the
secretariat that coordinates the implementation of the Dakar Framework for
Action, the most ambitious inter-UN agency campaign ever launched to try to
achieve universal, quality basic education by the year 2015.
The role of UNESCO and the
other international agencies is to assist Member States fulfil their collective
commitment to implement the Dakar Framework, which launched twelve practical
strategies based on past lessons and changing global contexts. These include an
increased focus on the quality of education, full and equal education for girls
and women, early childhood care, adult education, as well as fostering the
widest possible application of new technologies in the education systems of rich
and poor countries alike.
The joint message for World
Teachers’ Day will be available online at www.unesco.org/bpi/eng/dg/
The World Education Forum global
basic education campaign can be followed online at www.unesco.org/education/efa/wef_2000/index.shtml
An Executive Summary of Teachers
for Tomorrow’s Schools : Analysis of the World Education Indicators - 2001
Edition (UNESCO-UIS/OECD, 225 pages) can be consulted online at: unescostat.unesco.org/en/pub/pub_p/wei2001.htm
UNESCO’s Web site
provides additional education and other key statistical indicators online at unescostat.unesco.org/