Teachers shortage: Countries sacrificing standards when hiring, says Unesco

Countries are sacrificing standards and hiring teachers with little or no training, according to a UNESCO policy paper.

The study, prepared by UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics and the EFA Global Monitoring Report, says that at least 93 countries have an acute teacher shortage, and need to recruit around four million teachers to achieve universal primary education by 2015.

If the deadline is extended to 2030, more than 27 million teachers need to be hired, 24 million of whom will be required to compensate for attrition, according to UIS data.

The study also shows that many countries are recruiting teachers who lack the most basic training. In one-third of countries with data, fewer than 75 per cent of primary school teachers were trained according to national standards in 2012.

“In Angola, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and South Sudan, this figure falls below 50 per cent. As a result, in roughly a third of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the GMR shows that the challenge of training existing teachers is greater than that of recruiting new teachers to the profession,” the paper revealed.

Sub-Saharan Africa faces the greatest teacher shortage, accounting for two-thirds of the new teachers needed by 2030.

Aaron Benavot, Director of the EFA Global Monitoring Report, said, “We have prepared a new Advocacy Toolkit for teachers to help us relay these messages to their governments. Teachers, better than anyone else, can relay how teacher shortages and a lack of training are making it just about impossible to deliver a quality education.”

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