Background

The Sectoral Activities Programme of the International Labour Organization is carrying out an action programme for the 2004-2005 biennium to help constituents in member States to improve access to and quality of education, in the framework of the international Education for All Campaign, by helping to resolve shortages of qualified teachers.

Introduction

At the same time that education’s importance for knowledge and information societies is becoming paramount, teacher shortages are growing worldwide. A survey published by the ILO and UNESCO, A Statistical Profile of the Teaching Profession (2002), shows that despite substantial progress in recruiting new teachers since 1990, demographic pressures and the need to reduce the high out of school population are making a chronic situation worse in many developing countries. Ambitious goals to achieve Education for All (EFA) in all countries by 2015 are seriously threatened. In the developed countries, general, subject- or geographic-specific shortages (or all three) are growing to the point that Education ministries in most OECD countries are cooperating on a special project to share ideas and information on measures to meet the challenges. Moves toward universal lifelong learning systems are dependent on successful resolution of these questions.

Issues and problems

The problems are not the same in all countries. In developing countries, chronic teacher shortages combined with lack of basic teaching and learning conditions have for decades led to excessively large classes, high drop out rates, denial of even minimum access, especially for girls, and generally poor educational quality. Among major issues to be addressed in most countries are:

• levels of initial teacher education;
• minimum provision of in-service training;
• raising salaries from poverty levels to attract and retain better teaching candidates and/or alternative provisions for teacher supply to rural areas, especially without recourse to shortcuts such as long term use of contractual teachsers, all of this in a context of severe budgetary and fiscal constraints;
• providing for minimum teaching support infrastructure;
• addressing gender disparities which discourage educational opportunities for girls;
• and addressing the ravages of HIV/AIDS.

A common issue cutting across countries with differing socio-economic levels is how to institutionalize meaningful social dialogue between educational authorities (public and private) and teachers’ unions which facilitates and encourages positive education reform.

Proposed means of action by the ILO

The ILO's Education Action Programme seeks to address these issues and assist member States and the social partners to improve the attractiveness of teaching and meet educational quality goals through a programme of research and policy analysis on causes and solutions, social dialogue forums to share experiences and policy options, and a global report to be prepared over the period 2004-2006.

The programme will begin with a research component to better understand the obstacles and possible solutions within countries on a regional basis. This research will take the form of country reports. These reports, together with previous policy recommendations from ILO sectoral meetings and the joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts (CEART), as well as national analysis and good practices brought by participants, will form the basis for regional social dialogue forums to be held in Africa, Latin America and the Carribbean, Asia, and Eastern Europe/Central Asia. The forums are designed to identify with more precision the principal obstacles as well as the policy, legislative and other measures necessary to address them.

The regional research and dialogue results will be synthesized in a global report prepared by the Office in 2006 for submission to the Governing Body, the CEART and all member States. As part of the action programme, a monitoring and assessment mechanism will be established to evaluate impact of the programme on national policy and action.