Ei-iE

Education International’s Asia-Pacific Regional Office (EIAP) seized the opportunity of the 6th Asia-Pacific Meeting on Education 2030 (APMED) to voice concerns over the lack of teacher representation and equitable discussions on teachers, highlighting that teachers and their professional insights and experiences are overlooked in too many cases when education policies are established.

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4

The meeting, held from 10–12 September in Bangkok, Thailand, under the theme of “Accelerating actions: Transforming the what and how of learning for a sustainable future”, gathered over 150 participants from more than 25 countries to discuss accelerating progress and closing the existing gap to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4. It was organized by the UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok in collaboration with the UNICEF Asia-Pacific Regional Office (UNICEF EAPRO), and the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia (UNICEF ROSA).

The APMED main focus was to shape the contributions on SDG 4 from the Asia-Pacific region for the 2024 Global Education Meeting (GEM) and following the Fortaleza Declaration. This declaration was adopted during the sixth Summit of the BRICS - an intergovernmental organization comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates- in Fortaleza in 2014. It created the New Development Bank (NDB) aiming to strengthen cooperation among BRICS countries and supplement the efforts of multilateral and regional financial institutions for global development.

Ensuring quality education and that trained teachers are taken into account

The final outcome document includes recommendations around foundational learning, strengthening education systems for them to become more resilient, gender equality in education, teaching and the teaching profession, learning assessments, lifelong learning and skills for the future, leadership in education and increased funding for education.

EIAP’s efforts ensured that the following critical recommendations were included in the APMED final outcome document:

1. Tackling the teacher shortage: “Investing in teachers: Tackle the teacher shortage by hiring quality trained teachers, making the teaching profession more attractive for the younger generation, ensuring support and decent working conditions, and enhancing status of teachers, including through wages comparable with professions requiring similar levels of qualifications and continuous professional development as called in the UNSG High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession Recommendations.”
2. Using technology and developing digital competencies: “Developing digital competency frameworks with and for teachers: Collaboratively develop tools informed by pedagogical practice, curricula, and context considerations that respond to the needs of teachers and learners. Ensure the active involvement of teachers in the design, piloting, implementation, and evaluation of digital tools considered for use in education to enhance relevance and effectiveness. Ensure systems maintain pedagogical autonomy when integrating ICT and AI competencies for teachers and keep people at the centre.” A lot of discussions and dialogue went on the use of technology in the education, incentivizing teachers to motivate in using technology in their teaching, types of trainings that teachers need and require, as far as echoing by some participants that the administrative work of teachers being light and the reasons of teachers' overload is incomprehensible.
3. Education financing: The recommendations reaffirmed the globally agreed call to “commit to allocating at least 4-6% of GDP and/or 15-20% of total public expenditure to education to meet international benchmarks for sustainable education funding.” It is also important to note that the participants were questioning about the “public expenditure” versus “private expenditure”.

EIAP also insisted that the final outcome document draws from the United Nations High-Level Recommendations on the Teaching Profession. EI member organizations in the Asia-Pacific are greatly encouraged to use this document to advocate for stronger support to teachers across this region.