I'm honoured to share a message through the ASPNET Newsletter.

I hope all the members are fine and committed to education and equitable and inclusive societies.

My message to you today is that protecting education is also protecting teachers, and education resilience depends on teachers' resilience.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, UNESCO and its partners including through the Teachers Taskforce (TTF) Platform have been working to ensure that teachers are supported, protected and recognised as the crisis unfolds. In April we issued a Call for Action on Teachers, to advocate for their support and recognition in the crisis. More recently, we have published a Toolkit for school leaders to support teachers during schools reopening. We intend to continue to maintain our advocacy to support teachers, and in particular to ensure that their voices are heard at all stages of the policy development process, the recovery, resilience building and the reimagining of education.

In October during World Teachers Day, we recognised the commitment and dedication teachers have shown, as well as their leadership and resourcefulness, in ensuring that learning never stops, despite the ongoing difficulties brought about by COVID-19. We know that least 63 million primary and secondary teachers alone have been affected by the pandemic, and, undaunted, have continued their work, designing remote learning solutions, supporting vulnerable learners, and mitigating learning gaps.

The TTF and UNESCO are committed to support them. Last April, UNESCO launched the Global Education Coalition, which counts over 150 partners and is taking action in 70 countries. Its flagship initiative "Global Teachers Campus" implements capacity-building and training programmes to provide the teaching community with much-needed digital skills and distance learning pedagogies and tools. By addressing the challenges of connectivity faced in many places around the world, as well as the need for improved ICT skills post-COVID, this kind of initiative will help us work with teachers in order to 'build back better'.

We look forward to work with all ASPENET Members to advance teachers, their status and their role to achieve SDG4, peaceful, sustainable societies, international solidarity and global citizenship.

Thank you and keep well.