5.2m teachers to be recruited globally in 2015 ! – UNESCO

Not less than 5.2 million teachers are billed to be recruited globally by governments in 2015, according to a statement signed by UNESCO’s Director of Education-for-All, Mrs. Pauline Rose.

The statement issued in Abuja said the recruitment was aimed at stimulating learning and to ensure quality education globally.

It said that the teachers would swell the rank of existing ones and would be deployed around the world.

According to the statement, governments in more than 37 countries with identified backwardness in educational development would employ the teachers.

It noted that the future of the current generation of children around the world depended on teachers, adding that educational programme for children must be supported to provide them with right to universal, free and quality education.

The statement said that in line with the vision, a report on the 11th Education for All Global Monitoring tagged “ Teaching and Learning: Achieving Quality for All”, aimed at tackling global educational problems would be launched on Jan. 31.

It stressed that the thrust of the programme was to track the educational progress “of the marginasalised nations in the world after 2015, in such a way that no one would be left behind in the attainment of global education goals.

According to the statement, the cost of 250 million children around the world not learning the basics in education translates to a loss of an estimated 129 million dollars.

The UN body said that 37 countries were losing at least 65 million dollars being spent on primary education “because the children are not learning”.

It warned that without attracting and adequately training enough teachers, the learning crises in most developing countries would last for several generations.

According to it, in many sub-Saharan African countries, only one child in every five of the poorest children get to the end of primary school, having learnt the basics in reading and mathematics.

“Poor quality education is leaving a legacy of illiteracy more widespread than previously believed.

“More than 175 million young people in poor countries cannot read all or part of a sentence,” it stated.

UNESCO, therefore, urged governments in adversely affected countries to provide the best in the teaching profession “to those who need them most”.

It said that ensuring equal and quality education for all would generate huge economic reward and that it would increase some country’s Gross Domestic Product per capita by 23 per cent in about 40 years.

The statement said “to achieve good quality education for all, governments must provide enough trained teachers, and focus their teacher policies on meeting the needs of the disadvantaged.

“This means attracting the best candidates into teaching, giving them relevant training, deploying them within countries to areas where they are needed most and offering them incentives to make a long-term commitment to teaching’’.

It revealed that attention would also be given to gender-based violence in schools, which had become a major barrier to quality and equality in education.

It added that curriculum and assessment strategies to promote inclusion and improved learning would also be underscored.