Every Child Needs a Teacher!
Education International (EI) and its affiliates worldwide take part in the Global Action Week (GAW) activities to remind governments, the international community and other stakeholders that every child needs a qualified teacher. Led and created by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), of which EI is a founding member, this year’s GAW will be held from 21-27 April. Its theme is:“Every Child Needs a Teacher”.
As one of the major focal points for the education movement, GAW provides everyone campaigning for the right to education with an opportunity to highlight a core area of the Education For All (EFA) agenda and make targeted efforts to achieve change on the ground, with the added support of millions of members of the public worldwide joining together for the same cause.
Failure to deal with the shortage of qualified teachers is one of the biggest constraints to achieving Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Quality education requires quality teachers.
To guarantee every learner’s right to quality education, EI insists that every child must be taught by a professional, well-trained and well-supported teacher. To get every child in primary school by 2015 – a promise explicitly stated in the EFA and MDG frameworks – 5.4 million school teachers are needed. This number takes into account teacher attrition as well as 2 million additional teachers required to fill the gap. These, and the millions more unqualified teachers who are already in post need to be professionally trained.
Teachers must also be much more equitably deployed to ensure that disadvantaged children are not missing out on quality education. Remedying these challenges requires focused intervention, including significant, well-targeted financing. Incentives designed to attract and retain teachers in rural and other disadvantaged areas can go a long way in ensuring educational quality and equity for all.
The ‘emergency’ responses of recruiting untrained teachers adopted by Governments worldwide so far have failed, and have simply contributed to the crises in quality and equality. National governments must commit to solving the teacher and learning crisis by recruiting and training to fill their national gap in professional teachers, and reporting on their progress and spending towards this.
“Teachers make the difference between children just being in school and learning; if we want to improve the quality of education, we must urgently fill the global gap in professional teachers,” said EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen. “If we value learning, we must value teachers. Every child has the right to a professional, trained teacher. To this end, Governments must invest at least six per cent of their countries’ gross domestic product in education.”
Van Leeuwen also reiterated that teachers and their unions must be heard and have a great role to play in education policy development, implementation and evaluation.
At national level, EI affiliates and EFA coalitions will organise activities at school and other levels and invite political leaders such as Heads of State, Finance and Education Ministers to participate in a ‘whole school’ or community event.
EI and the GCE are encouraging teachers, students, education campaigners and concerned citizens to take part in GAW events happening all around the world.
For more information about the 2013 GAW, please go to: http://everychildneedsateacher.org/
