Six million new teachers needed to ensure universal Primary Education

(October 06, 2011) The United Nations marked World Teachers’ Day Wednesday with a warning that 6.1 million more teachers are needed to meet the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of attaining universal primary education by 2015. Two million of these are additional posts, with sub-Saharan Africa alone accounting for more than half. But there is a shortfall also in industrialized nations such as the United States, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Sweden, according to data published by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics. The remaining 4.1 million teachers are needed to replace those leaving the profession for a variety of reasons such as retirement, illness or career change. The theme of World Teachers’ Day 2011 is ‘Teachers for gender equality,’ reflecting a profession in which women outnumber men in primary schools, accounting for 62 per cent of teachers worldwide. But their working conditions, pay, and status are deteriorating. “If we want to give equal opportunities to our daughters and sons to realize their full potential and claim their rights, we must devise policies and strategies that attract and motivate capable women and men to teach, while also enabling them to create gender-equal learning environments,” UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said. World Teachers' Day, held annually on October 5th since 1994, commemorates teachers’ organizations worldwide. Its aim is to mobilise support for teachers and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers.