UNESCO | Education - Teacher education

Teacher education

Dealing with teacher shortage in Africa

A minimum of three million more teachers is needed in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve the goal of universal primary education by 2015.

As the number of African children going to school is on the rise, the demand for more and better teachers is noted everywhere: In 1987, there were 73 million children at African school desks; in 2001, the figure had increased to 106 million.

To achieve universal primary education by 2015, school systems in Africa will have to cater for nearly 180 million children in 2015.

As a result, the training of teachers is trumpeted everywhere in Africa as a national priority. Yet the description of their situation, their living and working conditions, and their opportunities for personal advancement indicates the contrary. Lack of motivation, inadequate skill levels, insufficient pay, and low morale seem the salient features of this profession to the extent that for many teachers it is merely a job to do while waiting for something better to come along.

Low pay is demotivating, and does not help retain teachers of high standards and ambition, nor does it allow much to be expected of them. The proclaimed importance of teachers is thus not necessarily being translated into educational policy; and teacher training is seldom connected with the needs of teacher recruitment, quantitative or qualitative. The result is frequently an imbalance between a strong demand for teachers - which the traditional teacher training courses cannot meet - and institutions which regularly churn out teachers who will not find jobs.

While the overall number of teachers in the region is high, they are unevenly distributed, especially by gender. The proportion of women teachers, initially large, falls in the higher grades.