Education and employment

Employment in education and teacher shortages

Teachers and trainers are key to quality learning outcomes as the core of human resources in organized education and training systems.

Despite their importance to learning access and education quality, teacher shortages are growing in most industrialized and developing countries. UNESCO estimates that more than 18 million new teachers will be needed to achieve the goal of Education for All by 2015. The ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts (CEART) has noted the international assessments that in “the most acute cases there is an existing shortfall of approximately 30 per cent of qualified teachers in primary and secondary schools, with even greater shortages in remote and high-risk areas.” For this reason, the ILO embarked on an action programme, Teachers for the future: Meeting teacher shortages to achieve Education for All (EFA) [NB: add to right hand menu bar] to help government worker and employer constituents in member States to define and implement policies to reduce the shortages.

Contractual teachers

As a low-cost shortcut to recruiting teachers to meet chronic shortages in developing and some developed countries, education authorities have increasingly turned to a policy of hiring untrained or under-trained teachers for limited terms in job categories variously known as “contractual”, “para” or ‘volunteer” teachers. These “teachers” are paid considerably less than fully trained, certified teachers, have little or no career or professional development prospects and provide instruction of lower quality than professional teachers. For a review of the scope and impact of such policies, see:

• ILO working paper, The use of contract teachers in developing countries: Trends and impact
• The Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts (CEART) has recommended in its 2006 Report to do away with such policies in the interest of a fully professional, skilled and motivated teaching corps:

“There is ... an urgent need to develop and implement policies … within stipulated time lines to provide for continued professional development of contract or unqualified teachers and to integrate all teachers into a single, regular teaching force after attainment of requisite professional qualifications, as contemplated by the 1966 Recommendation.”