June 1st - The International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 is launching a campaign calling on governments and the donor community to urgently increase their funding of teachers and teaching. Such an increase is crucial to help education systems recover from the COVID-19 crisis and build their resilience. It is also critically needed to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, especially the education goal and its targets.
Qualified and motivated teachers are the single-most important school-based determinant of quality education. Around the world, however, there not enough teachers and large numbers of teachers have not received sufficient training.
People who are already disadvantaged are disproportionally affected by these shortfalls. Remote and poor areas face acute teacher shortages, swelling class numbers and shrinking learning time. This “teacher gap” – quantitative and qualitative – is one of the world’s biggest education challenges.
The COVID-19 crisis and ensuing school closures have posed unprecedented challenges for education systems. The crisis threatens to significantly slow progress towards many of the global development goals, especially the education-related goals. It is also likely to exacerbate the global learning crisis and global education inequalities, as the impact falls disproportionately on the poorest. Education budgets are coming under strain, in particular in middle- and low-income countries. Reductions in public spending have been coupled with the financial strain felt by households as the global recession unfolds.
The crisis has shown clearly the need to sustain and increase domestic and international investment in teachers and teaching, especially salaries, which make up the largest component of education budgets. Further investment is also needed so that teachers are prepared and supported for the challenges that the crisis has caused, notably to enable remedial teaching and ensure that a generation of learners is not lost.
The Teacher Task Force campaign aims to secure the international community’s commitment to substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers by 2030 through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries, especially least developed countries and small island developing states. In particular, it will call for greater funding to:
- maintain salaries and enhance working conditions to attract quality candidates
- improve teachers’ continuing professional development
- ensure health and safety and provide psychosocial support for teachers and pupils.
The time to invest in teachers is now – to ensure sustainable recovery from the crisis and prepare today’s learners for tomorrow. Join us to call on national decision makers and international funding organisations to make the best investment they can make – in today’s teachers for tomorrow’s future.
More information and to sign the call, visit the campaign’s webpage.