Category Archives: Teachers

Wanted: The Best Teacher for Every Class

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

Tracking progress on teacher training is vital to progress towards SDG 4

It could be a classroom in the heart of Tokyo or New York. It could be deep in the Amazon rainforest, the mountains of Bhutan or in the townships of Johannesburg. But wherever the classroom, much of its success relies the teacher.

Ideally, this teacher has been properly trained, and has every skill they need to inspire and enthuse their pupils. And ideally, they will teach generation after generation of children, becoming one of the teachers people remember with gratitude for the rest of their lives.

This vision will be celebrated on 5 October, when World Teachers’ Day focuses on the world’s young teachers, exploring ways to attract and keep the brightest minds and young talents. Here at the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS), we see effective reporting on teacher training as a vital part of this process. Its importance has also been recognized in the SDG 4 monitoring framework: Indicator 4.c.1 requires data on the proportion of teachers in pre-primary right through to upper secondary education who have received at least the minimum amount of formal teacher training, whether pre-service or in service, to do their job. Continue reading →

The World is Off Track to Deliver on its Education Commitments by 2030

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By Manos Antoninis, Director of the Global Education Monitoring Report, and Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Without a shift from ‘business as usual’, the world will miss its goal of a quality education for all by 2030, according to our first-ever projections on progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4).

We are almost one-third of the way to 2030 and the generation that should finish secondary education by the deadline is making its way into the world’s primary classrooms. Yet if current trends continue, in 2030, when all children should be in school, one in six aged 6-17 will still be excluded. Many children are still dropping out too: by 2030, only six in ten young people will be completing secondary education. There is a real risk that the world will fail to deliver on its education promises without a rapid acceleration of progress. Continue reading →

We Must Support Our Teachers

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

It seems so obvious: without good teachers, there cannot be good education. But when you look more closely at the conditions in which millions of them work, you could be forgiven for thinking that this message isn’t getting through.

The latest data release from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) offers some sobering facts and figures for the annual CIES Conference in San Francisco this week. The Conference will focus on ‘Education for Sustainability’, and it seems to me that you cannot sustain anything in education – not even one single school class – without a good teacher who is driving the pupils’ learning. Continue reading →

The Teacher’s Waking Nightmare

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics

You did well at school and at college. You studied hard and made great sacrifices to qualify as a teacher – determined to help the next generation reach their full potential. But now you’re standing in a poorly-equipped classroom in front of 50 children aged from 6 to 11 years old. You have a few textbooks that are falling apart, only a handful of pens and pencils, a few scraps of paper, and no chalk for the chalkboard painted on the crumbling wall behind you. And your pupils are looking at you expectantly, ready for you to teach them everything that they need to know.

This is not some nightmare that ends when you wake up. It’s a daily reality for many of the world’s teachers. Continue reading →

Closing the Teacher Gap: Almost 69 Million Teachers Needed

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By Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, and Vikas Pota, Chief Executive of The Varkey Foundation

Many of us had one we will never forget – a teacher who inspired and encouraged us. We were fortunate. Millions of children today are not so lucky.

On World Teachers’ Day (5 October), the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) has released a paper setting out the first-ever estimates of how many more teachers are needed to ensure that every child is in school and learning what they need to know by 2030. In short, the world has just 14 years to recruit a total of 68.8 million teachers: 24.4 million primary teachers, and almost twice as many – 44.4 million – secondary school teachers. Continue reading →