Message from the Heads of UNESCO, ILO, UNICEF, UNDP and
Education International on the occasion of World Teachers’ Day, 50th
anniversary of the 1966 UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of
Teachers, 5 October 2016
Every year on World Teachers Day we celebrate the limitless
contributions made by teachers around the world. Day after day, year in and
year out, these dedicated women and men guide and accompany students through
the world of learning, helping them discover and fulfill their potential. In
doing so, teachers not only help shape the individual futures of millions of
children; they also help shape a better world for all.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development makes this
critical connection between education and development. By adopting Sustainable
Development Goal 4, world leaders pledged to “ensure inclusive and equitable
quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” This
goal cannot be achieved unless we increase the supply of qualified teachers and
empower them to be agents of educational change in the lives of the students
they teach.
The situation is urgent. To achieve universal primary education
by 2030, we need 24.4 million more teachers. The number is even greater for
secondary education with 44.4 million secondary school teachers needed.
How can we recruit these new teachers and attract them to
the vital profession of teaching when around the world, so many teachers are
undertrained, underpaid and undervalued?
Many teachers still work with inadequate contracts and pay.
They often live in difficult conditions, and lack appropriate initial training,
continuous professional development, and consistent support. They are sometimes
victims of discrimination and even violent attacks.
Teaching could be an attractive, first-choice profession –
if teachers were valued commensurate with the immense value they provide to our
children, and if their professional status as educators reflected the enormous
impact their profession has on our shared future.
That means providing them with continuing training and
development to support them in their critical role of educating all children,
in all contexts – including the poorest, most remote communities, and in
communities in crisis. It means
compensating them properly and giving them the tools they need to do their
indispensable jobs. It means putting in place policies that safeguard and
reinforce the status of teachers – beginning by giving teachers a place at the
table and an active role in decision-making that affects their work. And it
means improving the efficiency and effectiveness of education systems at every
level.
Fifty years ago today, these principles were laid down in
the landmark 1966 UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers,
which resulted in the first international standard-setting instrument on
teachers. Since that day, we have made tremendous progress in elevating the
status of teachers – but far more work remains to be done.
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