Paris, October 5. — About 24 million primary teachers and 44 million secondary teachers are needed to achieve the goal of providing these levels of education for all before 2030, a warning from UNESCO not only because of the decline of professionals in school classrooms. world, but also in the face of evidence that this sector is one of the lowest paid.
Regarding World Teachers’ Day, which is celebrated this Thursday, the Director-General of the global organization, Audrey Azoulay, called for action to improve the global shortage of teachers, as well as their situation, and stressed the role they play in societies. “Vital.”
“This profession is witnessing a major professional crisis. Some regions of the world are short on candidates and others face a very high attrition rate during the first years of work. Either way, the answer is the same: we must value, train, and support teachers better.
For the administrator, the actions taken should make this job more attractive, investing in the initial training of professors, in their continuous development programs, implementing mentoring initiatives, and ensuring that teachers receive competitive salaries and benefits.
He also called for simplifying administrative tasks and documentation so that teachers can focus more on teaching and promoting a healthy work-life balance, as well as facilitating access to mental health services and advice on managing stress and emotional difficulties.
Naturally, these measures must be adjusted to suit national circumstances and challenges, and this also requires changing methods of recruitment, preparation and motivation, because – as UNESCO acknowledges – “the problem lies not only in funding, but also in the lack of youth attractiveness.” profession.
Recently, the multilateral entity has also called for increased global investment in girls’ and women’s education, in the interests of gender equality, as Prensa Latina reflected.
Audrey Azoulay then noted that the international community adopted the United Nations Declaration and Program of Action on the Rights of Women in Beijing in 1995, and “since then, significant progress has been made in education. Today, 90 percent of girls around the world complete their education.” primary school, and more than 40 percent of women have access to higher education.
But he stressed: “We must continue to move in this direction, because we have not yet achieved gender equality in education.”
This year, the award was presented to the Star Schools Program (Pakistan) and the Spring Buds Project (China), and is a recognition sponsored by the Chinese government specifically to recognize the innovation and contribution of people, institutions and organizations in promoting sustainable development. Women’s education.
Regarding these alerts, UNESCO confirmed that the region that has made the most progress is South Asia, where the teacher shortage has halved since 2016, while it is concerned about sub-Saharan Africa. Progress there is minimal, with the current global deficit at one-third.
At the same time, two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women.
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