Human resources for education service delivery
Teachers for all: what governments and donors should do
Crisis in the teaching profession threatens Education For All
Authors:
S. Nock; Global Campaign for Education
Publisher:
Global Campaign for Education , 2006
This paper focuses on the situation of teachers, the problems they face and the detrimental effect these problems are having on children’s ability to complete a good quality education. As well as setting out the problems faced by teachers, education managers and governments in poor countries, the paper also collects together a range of solutions to the problems highlighted.
The paper argues that the crisis in the teaching profession is threatening the ability of poor countries to reach internationally agreed targets to expand and improve education. It highlights that in many countries, the teaching force is demoralised and divided. Teachers previously benefiting from considerable public respect and reasonable financial reward, feel that their status is in decline. Trained and motivated teachers are the most crucial ingredient in the provision of quality education for all. Other inputs, such as investments in school buildings, school feeding programmes or ICT, are doomed to fail if there are not enough teachers in a school for them to be able to teach effectively, or if teachers have received little or no training. The report calls for a major push on all fronts to secure a professionally trained, well-supported and highly motivated teacher workforce.
Key recommendations include:
- investment by poor country governments and donors in rebuilding the public sector, including investing in recruitment, training and salaries for 14–22.5 million extra teachers and an end to user fees
- governments and donors must work together to reduce pupil–teacher ratios to 40:1
- women and members of marginalised groups should be actively encouraged to enter the teaching profession, through positive discrimination in the form of quotas, scholarships, and lower entry requirements
- teacher training capacity – both pre- and in-service – needs to be increased in many poor countries
- high priority must be given to training teachers to teach about HIV & AIDS. Both in-service and pre-service teacher training should include compulsory HIV & AIDS components that are examinable or certifiable
- teacher salary levels should be decided nationally in properly organised collective bargaining procedures with teachers’ unions, using comparisons with similar professions in the same country and with teaching positions in neighbouring countries as a starting point.
[adapted from author]
