Percentage of qualified teachers

Definition

Percentage of teachers by level of education taught who have at least the minimum academic qualifications required for teaching their subjects at the relevant level in a given country.

Calculation method

Number of teachers in a given level of education who are qualified is expressed as a percentage of all teachers in that level of education.

Data required

Number of teachers at each level of education who are qualified and total number of teachers at each level.

Data source

Administrative data from schools and other organized learning centres.

Interpretation

High values indicate that students are being taught by teachers who are academically well qualified in the subjects they teach.

Limitations

It is important to note that national academic qualification requirements can vary from one country to the next. This variability between countries lessens the usefulness of global tracking because the indicator would only show the percent reaching national standards, not whether teachers in different countries have similar levels of academic qualifications. Further work would be required if a common standard for academic qualifications is to be applied across countries.

Purpose

Teachers play a key role in ensuring the quality of education provided. Ideally all teachers should receive adequate, appropriate and relevant pedagogical training to teach at the chosen level of education and be academically well-qualified in the subject(s) they are expected to teach. This indicator measures the share of the teaching work force which is academically well-qualified.

Quality standards

Percentage of qualified teachers should not exceed 100%. When feasible, the number of part-time teachers should be converted to ‘full-time equivalent’ numbers of teachers; a double-shift teacher should be counted twice, etc. Ideally, all staff involved in direct classroom-teaching roles should be included in the calculations.

Types of disaggregation

Sex, level of education and type of institution (public/private).