Join the Global Action Week: ‘Every Child Needs a Teacher’

How different would your life be if you had never had a teacher? Would you be able to find a job? Would you be able to keep yourself and your family safe? Would you survive?

Most of us who grew up in the developed world cannot imagine never having had a teacher. We cannot imagine our lives without school or school with untrained teacher. Tragically, the experience for many millions of children in developing countries is quite the opposite: 132 million children are not in school at all, and millions more are simply sitting in a classroom with an untrained teacher, leaving school barely able to read or write.

Not having a trained teacher is the reality for too many children around the world. That’s why the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is working across its worldwide network with members and partners to draw attention to this fundamental challenge to reach the Education For All Goals.

This week is GCE’s Global Action Week (21-27 April 2013), which will see millions of people taking part in GCE members’ activities across the globe to support the ‘Every Child Needs a Teacher’ campaign. About 1.7 million new teachers are needed to achieve universal primary education (and more than 5 million more are needed to account for those who leave or retire).

Join the Global Action Week and support the ‘Every Child Needs a Teacher’ Campaign

What we need to do to achieve Education For All?

GCE is working to get more political support for increased financing to recruit, train and pay the salaries of teachers, stronger policies on teachers, more teacher training and greater international focus on teachers. All this is necessary to achieve quality education for all children. We believe that trained teachers are the key to ensuring children are in school and learning, but this crucial role is yet to be recognized by many governments and donors. We see too few or insufficient financial commitments to produce the vast number of trained teachers that are needed.

Some governments have directly reported the lack of training for teachers. One of the most drastic examples is Mali, where according to the UNESCO’s Institute of Statistics (2012) data half of all primary teachers are reported to have had no training at all – and a quarter of those who were trained were only in training for 6 months or less. The problem is not just in primary education: in Senegal and Tanzania, fewer than 1 in 5 pre-primary teachers are trained.

Once teachers are trained, governments have a responsibility to ensure they are able to do their jobs. However, in many countries salaries are extremely low. At the recent Learning For All Ministerial events convened by the United Nations Global Education First Initiative , the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and the World Bank, the Minister for Education of the Democratic Republic of Congo revealed that teachers are paid an average of US $70 per month – giving them just over $2 per day to live on. The government’s target is to bring this up to $100 per month, raising their daily living allowance by less than $1 per day. In Niger the figure is $125 per month, or $4 dollars a day, but 82% of teachers are employed on fixed-term contracts.

In September GCE and Education International released a new report, Closing the Trained Teacher Gap, which identifies the severity of the gap and its impact, and provides clear ways in which we can work together to close it.

If we value learning, then we must value teachers. If we want to achieve quality education for all, then we must deliver trained teachers for all.

GCE is delighted to have the support of the United Nations Secretary-General and the UNESCO Director-General in this year’s campaign film, in which the Secretary-General talks about a teacher who made an impact on his life.

http://youtu.be/PEumwLyzkJk

What’s happening around the world?

Around the world, GCE Members are campaigning to draw attention to the teacher gap, placing their focus on the problems children face due to of the lack of well-trained teachers. This is just a snapshot of what is happening around the world:

Palestinian Coalition for Safe School Environment, Palestine: a full week of events will be delivered including a national press conference, marches across several different cities and a national round table with policy-makers in Ramallah.

The Danish NGO Education Network, Denmark: 167,000 students and 8000 teachers have joined the campaign using EFA materials as part of the Danish ‘Reading Rocket’ schools’ activity.

Coordination Nationale des Associations, Syndicats et ONGs pour Education Pour Tous (ASO-EPT), Niger: a huge amount of diverse activity has been planned to engage the public and policy makers in the debate, including politicians visiting several schools, public entertainment events profiling the need for qualified teachers, a series of conferences highlighting different aspects of the EFA agenda and a media campaign.

Movement for Support of Quality Education, Afghanistan: one national and seven provincial events will be held across the week, including theatre and sports events involving children.

Coalition des Organisations de la Société Civile pour l’Education Pour Tous (COSC-EPT), Mali: a meeting with policy-makers and a press conference will be held.

Egyptians Without Borders for Development, Egypt: a new documentary film is being produced for Global Action Week, as well as a national conference and a meeting with donor countries.

Global Campaign for Education UK: Parliamentary meetings on the theme of teachers as well as thousands of children participating in an activity to depict their ideal teacher.

Movimiento de Educação para Todos, Mozambique and the Sudanese Network for Education For All, Sudan are both organising national marches to highlight the teacher gap.

Global Campaign for Education US: a series of public events and online campaigns including a seminar and reception at Capitol Hill.

Global Campaign for Education, Norway: public awareness-raising focused on national newspaper advertising campaign.

Somaliland Network for Education For All (SOLNEFA), Somaliland: public engagement events including a public symposium and a special radio talk show dedicated to the theme.

Iraqi Alliance for Education, National Coalition for Education India and the Vietnam Coalition for Education For All will all holding national conferences on teachers.

Children’s Human Rights Centre, Albania: targeted engagement with politicians and decision makers including an open discussion with politicians and a meeting with the directors of the Department for Education.

To find out what’s happening in your country, join the campaign or to download campaign materials please visit the campaign website.

We hope you’ll get involved in helping children learn and grow, and join our conversation on Facebook and Twitter.