Ei-iE

Teachers and Education Support Personnel around the world are overworked, underpaid, and undervalued. Deteriorating working conditions, low salaries, overwhelming workloads, and stifling bureaucracy are pushing teachers out of the profession they love and that the world needs.

This message is loud and clear as educators from around the world gather for the 10th World Congress of Education International (EI) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from July 29th to August 2nd. This Congress brings together 1,200 delegates, from 150 countries representing 32 million education workers worldwide, to discuss critical challenges facing public education globally. From this global stage, teachers are sending a unified message to the world, demanding urgent action to tackle the teacher shortage crisis.

"The teacher shortage is a critical issue that affects us all. Without enough qualified teachers, we cannot provide the quality education that every student deserves and our societies desperately need," said Education International’s General Secretary, David Edwards. "To reverse this trend, decisive political action is needed. It is imperative to increase public funding for public education and invest in teachers, guaranteeing their labor rights, and ensuring they have quality working conditions. It is also imperative to respect the profession, value teachers’ pedagogical expertise, and involve teachers in decision-making processes.”

Several factors contribute to the growing teacher shortage, including low salaries, increased workloads and inadequate working conditions. Half of all countries pay teachers less than other professions requiring similar qualifications. Furthermore, 60 per cent of teachers in a global survey last year reported increased stress and burnout, a strong factor in their decision to leave the profession. With fewer young people seeing teaching as a viable career and 44 million more teachers needed to achieve universal basic education by 2030, the crisis is clear.

The urgency of this crisis has compelled action at the global level. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres convened a High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession, composed of international experts and supported by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNESCO. This year, the Panel issued a series of recommendations to address the teacher shortage, focusing on reversing precarious employment, reducing workload, and increasing salaries. The recommendations include involving teachers in policy decisions, strengthening social dialogue, creating national commissions to improve working conditions and salaries, investing in teacher training and professional development, promoting inclusion and gender pay equity, and transitioning contract and unqualified teachers to permanent, qualified positions.

"Educators around the world are sounding the alarm on the teacher shortage crisis but are also presenting viable solutions. The High-Level Panel's recommendations support our demands and provide a clear path forward. We are ready to continue working to ensure the right to education for every child, advocating for governments to fully fund public education systems and invest in the teaching profession,“ concluded Education International’s President, Susan Hopgood.

The 10th Education International World Congress adopted a broad and ambitious resolution to tackle the global teacher shortage, encouraging education unions everywhere to rally around EI’s Go Public! Fund Education campaign which calls for governments to invest more in public education and in teachers. This means guaranteeing labour rights and ensuring good working conditions, as well as manageable workloads and competitive salaries for teachers and education workers. It also means valuing teachers, respecting teachers, ensuring they are central to decision-making, and trusting their pedagogical expertise.

Education unions will continue to mobilise and organise in order to fulfill every child’s right to free quality public education and a well-trained, well-supported, qualified teacher.