Ei-iE

Education International’s (EI) General Secretary, David Edwards, has called on all member organisations to complete the survey on the Global Status of Teachers and the Teaching Profession, which will serve as the basis for EI’s flagship report on the status of teachers and education workers worldwide, to be launched at EI’s World Congress in 2024.

Education International’s triennial report on the Global Status of Teachers and the Teaching Profession spotlights the voice of teachers across all levels of education, from early childhood to higher education and technical and vocational education and training. It collects data on various aspects of teacher policy and serves as a reference for unions’ advocacy work. It also provides a basis for EI’s Report to the Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendations Concerning Teaching Personnel (CEART).

The report will be based on an extensive survey of EI member organisations from all regions and will include views of teachers from focus groups convened by EI's MOs. The survey for the 2024 edition of the report is being carried out by Ben Arnold and Mark Rahimi of Deakin University, Australia, with the advice of leading education researcher, Linda Darling Hammond and her Learning Policy Institute.

The survey explores a variety of aspects relating to the status of teachers and teaching, and includes questions such as:

• Are teachers and their unions able to take part in decision making within schools and the education system?

• Do systems and policies promote teaching as a high-status profession?

• Do working conditions promote a healthy, sustainable profession?

• Does schooling promote inclusion, equity, and social justice?

• Is schooling publicly funded and regulated?

EI’s General Secretary, David Edwards has asked EI member organisations to give “the highest priority” to completing this survey. “We need the evidence to show to governments and global organisations the problems affecting teaching and, above all, how to fix them.”

Edwards referred to the growing global teacher shortage as one of the main barriers to ensuring quality education for all: “You will know, better than anyone else, that a strong teaching profession is critical to the future of the world. There is no hope that the existential crises the globe faces can be tackled without education.”

Edwards emphasised the need to ensure that “the teaching career is attractive, respected, and well-supported, and that teachers work in education systems that promote quality, publicly funded education for all.”

“Completing this survey will make a vital contribution to your campaigns and to Education International’s effectiveness in acting on your behalf”, he concluded.

To access the last report on the Global Status of Teachers and the Teaching Profession, by Thompson, G. (2021), please click here. The executive summary can be found here.