Education is the driving force in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Education equips people with the competences to secure decent jobs (SDG 8), the skills to take action to combat climate change (SDG 13), and the values to build more inclusive and peaceful societies (SDG 16). It carries the potential to reduce inequalities, on condition that inclusion and equity stand at the heart of all policies (SDG 16).

However, as we enter the last decade of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, data collected and analysed by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report) show a worrying trend. Indeed, the world is not on track to achieve SDG 4.

According their new report, Meeting Commitments: are countries on track to achieve SDG 4?, if the world continues on the current trends, 220 million children and youth will still be excluded from school in 2030 and one in three young people will not complete secondary education.

This worrying trend is coupled with the data showing that the proportion of trained teachers has also been falling. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 50% of teachers meet the minimum required training at secondary level, and 64% in primary, because since 2000, the focus has been on solving the teacher shortage and schools have been hiring contract teachers without qualifications to close the quantitative gaps at lower cost.

Teachers are at the heart of inclusive and equitable education. This lack of trained teachers results in poor learning outcomes for students and threatens the achievement of inclusive, equitable, quality education for all.

In light of these worrisome trends, The International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 reiterates its belief that holistic national teacher policies including the widest range of interlocking dimensions affecting teachers and teaching are the most efficient approach to improve teacher quantity and teaching quality.

A complementary publication prepared by the GEM Report calls for countries to ensure their education plans match their commitments. Titled Beyond Commitments: how countries implement SDG 4, the report encourages countries to focus their work on six key policy areas in order to achieve SDG 4, two of which recommend clear focus on teacher development. This is emphasised by the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee which lists “adequate training and support for teachers” as one of the six areas requiring systematic policy attention.

The Teacher Task Force believes that it is every learner’s right to be taught by qualified, motivated and empowered teachers. We also believe that teachers should be working within well-resourced, efficient and effectively governed systems to achieve inclusive and equitable quality education for all. It is our mission to mobilize governments and other stakeholders for the achievement of these goals through the implementation of comprehensive policies backed by sound data as outlined in our 2018-2021 Strategic Plan.

For this reason, the Teacher Task Force supports the call made by UNESCO, the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee and the global education community at large, on the occasion of the High-Level Political Forum to #CommitToEducation.

The High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) will take place from 9 to 18 July 2019 at United Nations Headquarters in New York, under the theme “Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality”. The HLPF is the main United Nations platform on sustainable development and it has a central role in the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals at the global level.

For more information, visit the HLPF 2019 UNESCO webpage and the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee website.

#CommitToEducation campaign is available at the following link.

The International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 will once again be taking part in the European Development Days (EDD) by organising a Lab Debate that will be taking place on 19 June 2019.

This year, the EDD are being held under the theme “Addressing inequalities: building a world which leaves no one behind”. The Teacher Task Force is seizing to opportunity to ensure that teacher development stays at the forefront of debates and consideration when it comes to discussion regarding equitable and inclusive learning environments.

Indeed, addressing inequalities and building a world that leaves no one behind begins on the benches of school. However, as the diversity of learners increases, and inequity rises, teachers face questions about their own values, role and collective responsibility in contributing to equitable futures.

The session titled “Creating equitable and inclusive schools: How to prepare teachers for the future we want?” will put the role and preparation of teachers at the centre of discussions when it comes to inclusive and equitable education. How do we ensure teachers do not perpetuate inequalities and exclusion within learning environments? What values, ethics and dispositions should teacher possess? How can teacher education and professional development build capacities necessary for inclusive and equitable education? What kind of support should be in place for teachers?

The audience will be encouraged to debate teachers’ professional ethics, values and attitudes, teachers’ competencies for creating safe and supportive schools for all as well as the importance of building a diverse teaching workforce.

This session will focus on the implications of teacher development, teacher policies and classroom practices underpinning inclusive and equitable education.

Moderated by the Teacher Task Force, the panel of speakers will include Dr Dennis Sinyolo, Senior Coordinator Education and Employment Unit at Education International, Dr Line Kuppens, Senior Education Advisor Primary and Secondary Education at VVOB – education for development, Dr Robert White, Reader at the University of Aberdeen, and Ms Akosua Peprah, Founder of the Mmaakunim Foundation.

For more information regarding the session, please visit the EDD 2019 dedicated website or contact the Teacher Task Force Secretariat i.da-silva@unesco.org.

Teachers are vital to developing students’ knowledge, attitude and skills to constructively and responsibly engage in society, uphold the principle of justice and help build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions.

UNESCO and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have partnered on a joint project titled "UNESCO/UNODC Initiative on Global Citizenship Education: Doing the Right Thing" aiming to improve the capacities of policymakers, educators, teacher trainers and curriculum developers to design and implement educational interventions addressing today’s challenges to peace, justice and the rule of law.

UNESCO and UNODC’s recent publication, Strengthening the rule of law through education: A guide for policymakers, offers concrete examples of how schools and teachers can increase trust and serve as models of just societies. For instance, when teachers establish fair classroom rules and enforce them uniformly, children and youth experience first-hand equal treatment, transparency and accountability, which are key elements of the rule of law. In addition, when teachers empower students to co-create classroom rules, young people recognize that they have an active role in shaping governance.

In contexts when ethical norms and values taught and modelled in schools are not prevalent outside of schools, it important that education programmes inspire learners’ motivation, and confidence to improve their situation. For example, teachers can facilitate the dialogue and exposure of young people with former actors of violence who recount their stories of transformation to develop positive role models.

In addition to this guide, UNESCO and UNODC are currently developing primary and secondary level teacher toolkits that include activities, lessons and resources to strengthen the rule of law, available October 2019. For more information, visit the project site at Global Citizenship Education for the Rule of Law: Doing the Right Thing.

To guide its work during 2019, the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 has adopted a comprehensive work plan.

Based on the Strategic Plan 2018-2021, the 2019 work plan establishes specific activities to be undertaken by the Teacher Task Force in order to achieve its goals: improving teacher quantity and quality.

2019 is the second year of the Strategic Plan. The main objective will be to continue strengthening the Teacher Task Force as a platform for exchange of knowledge and best practices, and as a dynamic network where members and partners are mobilized for dialogue and advocacy for teacher issues, in national, regional and global settings.

The Teacher Task Force will pay a balanced attention to the three main lines of actions laid out in the Strategic Plan, while focusing on priority activities likely to sustain evidence-based teacher policies and strategies.

MLA 1 – Advocacy

The Teacher Task Force will continue raising awareness on teacher issues by contributing to global and regional events. The aim is to ensure that discussion around the critical role of teachers remains high on the education agenda, and to advocate for adequate policies and increased financing of teaching.

This work will take various forms such as technical input to global fora of discussions, dissemination of material highlighting the importance of teachers for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 on education or organisation side events and debates during larger education focused conference or events.

MLA 2 – Knowledge creation and sharing

The Teacher Task Force will pursue its goal of bridging the knowledge gaps when it comes to teacher and teaching issues. This will include the undertaking of a mapping of the knowledge gaps on different dimensions of Teacher policy and practice, as well as research work on the state of teacher motivation, one the component of the teacher target in SDG4.

To facilitate the implementation and monitoring of SDG4, the Teacher Task Force will be involved in the development of a taxonomy of teacher training, along with UNESCO, UIS and GPE. This project will focus on documenting the nature of the training and the qualifications requirements countries apply in their national systems in order to improve the global comparability of data.

As it does every year, the Teacher Task Force will offer the platform of its Policy Dialogue Forum to policy-makers, researchers, academics to come share their best practices and learn from each other’s research and experiences.

MLA 3 – Country support

The Teacher Task Force will continue providing support for the start and continuing development of national teacher policies to its member states, but will focus on a limited number of interventions. Priority will be given to countries with which the Teacher Task Force has already been collaborating, using the full competency of the membership.

Governance

The 2019 activities will support the operationalisation of the regional and thematic groups established by the Strategic Plan 2018-2021. The aim will be to reinforce communication among the focal points, and to raise their awareness regarding regional SDG4 and education structures they should engage with, with institutionalised reporting and follow-up mechanisms

The foreseen activities will also serve to establish the thematic groups as technical expert groups in their domain by having them contribute technical inputs to wider events and/or undertake research projects.

You can download the 2019 work plan of the Teacher Force in English or French here for more information.

The International Task Force on Teachers for 2030 has just published its 2018 annual report. 2018 was the first year of the implementation of the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030’s new 2018-2021 Strategic Plan.

Adopted during 2017 annual meeting, the 2018-2021 Strategic Plan reaffirms the Teacher Task Force dedication to ensuring that every learner is taught by a qualified and trained teacher, and that teaching is considered a valued profession.

The main goal of the Teacher Task Force over the next four years is to bridge the teacher gap by working to improve teacher quantity and quality. The Strategic Plan also sets out the objectives and main lines of actions (MLA) for the partnership to achieve this goal.

Three main lines of actions were identified: Advocacy, Knowledge creation and sharing, and Support to countries. This report gives a detailed overview of the activities and results linked to this framework.

MLA 1: Advocacy

The Teacher Task Force has been very active in ensuring teacher issues are put at the forefront of education talks.

In June 2018, the Teacher Task Force organised a Lab Debate during the European Development Days on “Female teachers and gender equality in gender education” that looked at the ways we can support women to enter and remain in the teaching profession. A very pressing issues given that 132 million girls are out of school and they are 1.5 times more likely than boys to be excluded from primary school.

In October 2018, the Teacher Task Force contributed to raising awareness on the fact that having a qualified teacher in front of every student is a staple of the right to education. Together with UNESCO, the TTF penned a blog entry on the Global Partnership for Education’s website. This blog ended being featured in GPE’s top 10 blogs of 2018.

We also created a series of partnerships with international entities, resulting in the MasterCard Foundation officially joining the membership, NORRAG coordinating a subtheme during the last Policy Dialogue Forum (PDF) and the Teacher Task Force joining the Advisory Group of the Education Commission’s Education Workforce Initiative.

MLA 2: Knowledge creation and sharing

In 2018, the Teacher Task Force has continued its collaboration with the World Bank and published six country reports using the Systems Approach for Better Education Results tool (SABER-Teachers). The reports published cover Singapore, Norway, Croatia, Slovenia, Namibia and Mexico.

Held annually, the Policy Dialogue Forum (PDF) is the Teacher Task Force’s biggest knowledge-sharing platform. The 2018 edition was held under the theme “Strengthening Teacher Education: A prerequisite for quality teaching, training and learning” and looked at teachers’ competencies and skills beyond basic education.

The 2018 PDF was marked by the first ministerial panel organized at a PDF. Two Ministers of Education (Estonia and Lao PDR) joined the host Minister and a representative of the Minister of Education of Togo, to present the reforms they are implementing in their countries to strengthen teacher education and training.

MLA 3: country support

In 2018, two countries, supported by the Teacher Task Force concluded their work on teacher policy development with the adoption of a national teacher policy.

Togo completed the elaboration of the teacher policy in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Teacher Task Force and the UNESCO Regional Bureau of Abuja. The Government has adopted a new legislation on the statute of teachers inspired by provisions in the Teacher Policy Development Guide. To the nine dimensions laid out in Guide, Togo has added a 10th one on “Social dialogue” as an enabling factor for the successful implementation of the policy. Printed copies of the policy were distributed to some participants at the PDF in Jamaica, and other countries of the region invited the Togolese national team for experience sharing.

After two years of support, Madagascar finalized its teacher policy officially endorsed by the Ministry of Education in March 2018 during a validation ceremony organized by the Teacher Task Force in collaboration with the UNESCO Regional Bureau of Nairobi. Local Education Group members and Teacher Task Force members contributed to the review of the draft policy, which is now part of the broader framework of the sectoral plan for education 2018-2022 financed by the GPE.

You can read our 2018 annual report in English or French here.

The International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 (Teacher Task Force) is organizing a Strategy Lab during the upcoming Mobile Learning Week 2019. This year, the theme of the event “Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Development” will look at the opportunities and threats linked to the use of AI in education.

Technology offers enormous opportunities to expand the scope of knowledge and the reach of education and to support various styles of learning. With the development of AI, teachers’ education and roles have to evolve to allow teachers to adapt to new learning environments and empower them to harness these innovations and use them in their day-to-day work.

 The Teacher Task Force is mobilizing its members, particularly those belonging to its thematic group on ICT and distance education for teacher development, to share innovative pedagogical approaches in teacher management and professional development methods designed to include the use of AI during a Strategy Lab taking place Friday 8 March from 9 to 11 am (Paris time).

The Strategy Lab will feature examples of projects currently using AI, as well the practical role AI can play in addressing the challenges faced by teachers, with o focus on education in emergencies settings. Can AI be an effective support tool for teacher? What are the main concerns with this? Will the use of AI help bridge the digital divide in terms of teaching or will it widen it?

We will also discuss the ethical and moral considerations of using AI to support teachers. Can AI be used to support teacher education and training? Should it be? Should we be concerned that AI could replace the teachers themselves? This discussion will also focus on the potential social impact of AI in education as well as the biases (racial, gender and cultural) that could be involved in implementing AI systems in education settings.

Our presenters will also broach the more practical side of AI use to support teachers. What technological means are available to quantify the feasibility of introducing AI in supporting teachers and teacher development especially in refugee settings? What type of costs and investments are needed and/or available?

Finally, this Strategy Lab will serve as a springboard to discuss the policy guidelines needed to encourage appropriate use and discourage inappropriate use of AI to support the challenges faced by teachers and teacher development in the 21st Century.

This year we will be joined by Professor Hamdy Abdelaziz, Program Chair at the School of e-Education from the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University, Dubai, UAE; Dr George Saltsman, Director of Educational Innovation in the Office of the President, Lamar University, USA; Dr Nicky Mohan, Managing Partner of the InfoSavvy Group and Director and co-founder of SpringBoard21; and Bijay Dhungana, Vice-President of the International Centre of Excellence for Innovative Learning (ICEFIL).

Held annually in Paris since 2011, Mobile Learning Week is UNESCO’s flagship conference on ICT in education. It convenes education and technology experts from around the world as well as provides the educational community, governments and other stakeholders a unique opportunity to discuss the role of ICT and new technologies in education and the achievement of Sustainable Education Goal 4.

You can find more information about Mobile Learning Week 2019 on UNESCO’s website: https://en.unesco.org/mlw

At its annual meeting in Montego Bay, Jamaica, from 5-9 November, the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 adopted a declaration focused on ensuring that teacher issues stay at the centre of the global education agenda.

Through this declaration, the Teacher Task Force reinforces its vision that at the heart of the right to education is a highly-valued, qualified, and well-trained teaching profession. It therefore recommends that:

• International partners should intensify efforts to develop robust definitions and classifications of qualified and trained teachers and strengthen cooperation and reporting mechanisms to ensure full monitoring of Sustainable Development Goal target 4c.
• Governments should ensure adequate financing for all public goods, including the teacher workforce, and this should be achieved primarily through domestic resource mobilization based on socially just fiscal policies, rigorous measures against corruption and illegal financial flows, efficient and effective teacher policies and deployment practices, developed with the full involvement of teachers and their organisations, and continued focus on external resource mobilization to complement domestic resources for countries.

Moreover, the dual focus of the Education 2030 agenda on equity and learning puts teachers at the heart of policy responses that should foster equal participation and learning globally. Teachers can be an impactful equalizing force to overcome unequal life chances from birth. The massive recruitment of new teachers, particularly in least develop countries, with little or no training is a real cause for concern.

The Teacher Task Force also expressed its concern over the fact that teacher education has not kept pace with preparing new teachers to face the rapid changes in globalization, migration, demographic change, and technological advances that will mark the future of education.

Furthermore, teacher education in this increasing complex world must be forward-looking and prepare teachers who are continuous learners themselves. It must enable teachers to think about the kind of education that is meaningful and relevant to young people’s needs in the different 21st century’s learning environment.

The Teacher Task Force acknowledges the ever-growing importance of Information and Communication Technologies in education. However, technology should be treated as a supportive tool for teachers and not a replacement. Teacher education should therefore empower teachers to use technologies to support learning within a holistic and human-centred educational framework.

The Teacher Task Force also called attention to the fact that teacher education needs to be seen as career-long education and special attention should be paid to the nature of teachers’ professional development, competency frameworks, curriculum development and professional learning communities/communities of practice. As teaching is a knowledge-based profession, teachers and trainers should be supported to continually update their knowledge base.

Through this declaration, the Teacher Task Force advocates for a teacher education that allows teachers to prepare learners to manage change and to be able to shape a just and equitable future, leaving no one behind.

You can download the full declaration in English, French, Spanish or Arabic here.

With the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 4 on quality and inclusive education, and the dedicated target (SDG 4.c) on teachers, the education community recognized teachers as key to the achievement of the Education 2030 agenda.

As we celebrate World Teachers’ Day this year, we take this occasion to remind the global community that “The right to education means the right to a qualified teacher.” This theme was chosen to mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which recognized education as a key fundamental right. A right that cannot be fulfilled without qualified teachers.

The right to a qualified teacher

A qualified teacher is commonly defined as a teacher “who has at least the minimum academic qualifications required for teaching their subjects at the relevant level in a given country.” Qualified teachers are fundamental to the right to education. However, this definition does not include the notion of trained teachers, defined as “teachers who have received at least the minimum organized pedagogical teacher training pre-service and in-service required for teaching at the relevant level in a given country”. This results in teachers sometimes having the academic qualification required to teach, but not the pedagogical training, or vice versa. Some teachers even lack both academic qualifications and pedagogical training. In many low-income countries, there is a shortage of both trained and qualified teachers.

There is also a lack of data regarding the minimum requirements for pedagogical training among countries, and the existing differences are not well documented. Countries differ in regards to programme duration and curriculum content, extent of and quality of field experience (i.e., practice teaching), and availability and duration of induction and mentoring. For example, teacher education programmes can last from one to four years, may or may not include a period of supervised teaching practice, and may or may not require an academic qualification. Such qualitative differences in the training and qualifications of teachers affect instructional quality in the classroom and ultimately students’ learning achievement.

The impact of teacher shortage

One of the main challenges to this right worldwide is the continued shortage of teachers. There are an estimated 263 million children and youth still out of school globally, and according to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, the world needs to recruit almost 69 million new teachers to reach the 2030 education goal of universal primary and secondary education. This ‘teacher gap’ is more pronounced among vulnerable populations – girls, children with disabilities, refugee and migrant children, and poor children living in rural or remote areas.

Teacher shortages are hampering efforts in many low-income countries to achieving quality, equitable, and inclusive education. To fill the teacher gap, countries resort to hiring teachers on temporary contracts who do not meet the training and qualifications requirements nor have proper professional status thereby increasing, rather than decreasing, the equity gap.

The equity gap is most pronounced in emergency and conflict-situations, where qualified teachers are in short supply. According to UNICEF, more than one-third of out-of-school children and youth globally live in conflict-affected areas -- 55% of whom are girls. In emergency contexts, providing migrant and refugee children with education is key to helping them cope with the new situation. But often, humanitarian agencies must recruit teachers with no preparation for responding to the complex needs of vulnerable children who have been forced to flee their homes because of armed conflict, violence or natural disaster.

A global event

This year, World Teachers’ Day celebration will spotlight teachers’ experiences in crisis and emergency contexts.

A global event will be taking place at UNESCO’s Headquarter in Paris on 5 October. The morning panel will showcase the policy issues and practical challenges of securing the right to education for children and youth living in difficult contexts. It will feature a presentation by the Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great-Britain and Northern Ireland to UNESCO who will speak about the new DFID education policy that puts a focus on addressing the teacher shortage, especially among vulnerable populations in developing and conflict affected countries. Experts from the Global Education Monitoring Report will present a few teasers from the upcoming Report on migration. Finally, the panel will showcase the work of a French NGO, “Groupement d’Educateurs sans Frontières”, who train retired teachers to work with migrant and refugee children.

In the afternoon, the Director-General’s opening address will be broadcasted live in Geneva to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Joint Committee of Experts on the Applications of the Recommendations concerning the status of teachers (CEART), which will meet in Geneva, Switzerland from 1-5 October. The award Ceremony of the UNESCO-Hamdan bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Prize for Outstanding Practice and Performance in Enhancing the Effectiveness of Teachers will take place after the formal opening ceremony.

Awarded every two years, the Prize is generously supported by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum through the Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation for Distinguished Academic Performance. It amounts to US $300,000, which is equally divided between three winners whose projects aim at improving the performance and effectiveness of teachers in various regions of the world.

This year, the prize will be given to three programmes designed to improve teachers’ training and empower them: The Center for Mathematic Modeling of the University of Chile, the Diklat Berjenjang project (Indonesia) and the Fast-track Transformational Teacher Training Programme (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland).

The Ceremony will take place in presence of UNESCO’s Director-General, Ms Audrey Azoulay, and His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum.

Held annually on 5 October since 1994, World Teachers’ Day commemorates the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers. This Recommendation sets benchmarks regarding the rights and responsibilities of teachers and standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, and teaching and learning conditions.

World Teachers’ Day is co-convened in partnership with UNICEF, UNDP, the International Labour Organization, and Education International.

World Teachers' Day 2018 webpage