SIX MILLION NEW TEACHERS NEEDED TO ENSURE UN GOAL OF UNIVERSAL

SIX MILLION NEW TEACHERS NEEDED TO ENSURE UN GOAL OF UNIVERSAL PRIMARY
EDUCATION
The United Nations marked World Teachers' Day today with a warning that 6.1
million more teachers are needed to meet the internationally agreed
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of attaining universal primary education
by 2015.

Two million of these are additional posts, with sub-Saharan Africa alone
accounting for more than half. But the shortfall also affects industrialized
nations such as the United States, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Sweden,
according to data published by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics.

The remaining 4.1 million teachers are needed to replace those leaving the
profession for a variety of reasons such as retirement, illness or career
change.

Of the two million additional posts, sub-Saharan Africa accounts for
1,115,000, the Arab States for 243,000, South and West Asia for 292,000, and
North America and Western Europe for 155,000. Central and Eastern Europe,
Central and East Asia, Latin American and the Caribbean, on the other hand,
together account for only 11 per cent of the global shortage.

The theme of World Teachers' Day 2011 is 'Teachers for gender equality,'
reflecting a profession in which women outnumber men in primary schools,
accounting for 62 per cent of teachers worldwide. In some countries they
account for 90 per cent of primary school teachers. But their working
conditions, pay, and status are deteriorating.

"If we want to give equal opportunities to our daughters and sons to realize
their full potential and claim their rights, we must devise policies and
strategies that attract and motivate capable women and men to teach, while
also enabling them to create gender-equal learning environments," UNESCO
Director-General Irina Bokova said.

Her
<"http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/seeking_at_le
ast_two_million_teachers/">message was co-signed by the heads of the UN
Children's Fund (UNICEF), UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN International
Labour Organization (ILO), and Education International, the international
federation of education trade unions.

UNESCO events for the Day included testimonies by teaching professionals
about "Gender at school: an essential question of education," an open forum
on gender issues in the teaching force), and the launch of a new
publication, Women and the Teaching Profession: Exploring the 'Feminization'
Debate in Selected Commonwealth Countries, featuring case studies on the
role of teachers in the expanding the educational systems of countries such
as Dominica, India, Lesotho, Samoa and Sri Lanka.