Blog by Sandra Corrigan, Global Solidarity Officer at INEW member Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO)
Education International (EI) is a Global Union Federation, with 375 member organisations, EI represents more than 33 million teachers and education support personnel in 180 countries and territories including Ireland.
Their Global Status of Teachers report, recently published provides a global and regional analysis of the status and conditions of the teaching profession by representing the views of teacher unions worldwide. It builds on previous EI reports with survey data collected from 204 senior union representatives across 121 countries.
The report highlights the reasons for the growing global crisis in teacher supply, increased attrition, and rising stresses in schools while recognising how critical educations systems are to the social and economic well-being of societies. It offers key priorities for action and makes recommendations which seek to ensure that teaching remains attractive, sustainable and is well supported in order to ensure that teachers can continue to meet the needs of their current students and those of the next generation.
The main cause of the global teacher shortages is identified as the result of inadequate pay for work, with poor career progression, excessive working time, low status of the teaching profession, poor management practices and low standards of occupational health and safety cited as related and contributing factors. The report emphasises the need for policy makers to focus on reducing the attrition of existing teachers rather than solely on recruitment measures in policies to address the crisis and also the need to increase efforts to improve the status of the profession.
Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford, California in her foreword notes that “Given the enormity of the needs that face our systems today it will be critical to forge the social partnerships between government and unions that not only address the work-related issues identified in this report – which are vital for recruiting and retaining a stable and effective teacher workforce – but also build the foundations for new systems of education.”
In Ireland, the Irish National Teacher’s Organisation (INTO) actively engages with key stakeholders to address the ongoing teacher recruitment and retention crisis in primary and special education, including with UNESCO, who are leading a European Union-funded research project on Strategic Workforce Planning for Teachers in Ireland. This initiative aims to support the Irish Department of Education and Youth in identifying the key drivers of teacher shortages and developing evidence-based solutions.
David Edwards, General Secretary, EI maintains that the global crisis in teacher supply is reversible, if the issues are addressed in formal agreements between teacher unions and governments and that where there is social dialogue and partnership there is real progress in halting teacher attrition.
“[I]n countries where teacher status is high, so too are high levels of student achievement- and unsurprisingly they are the countries which have successfully tackled teacher attrition.”
The Irish National Teacher’s Organisation (INTO) is a member of the Irish Network for Education Worldwide (INEW). A heartfelt thank you to Sandra Corrigan for this kind contribution to our blog!
