World Teachers' Day

The recent UNESCO GEM Report on leadership in education found that only about half of countries emphasize teacher collaboration in their leadership standards . And barely one third of leadership programmes reviewed focused on developing school leaders’ preparedness to share responsibilities through openness, collaboration and partnerships. Only a few countries highlight the value of teacher collaboration in teacher evaluations as well, acting as an incentive for teachers to embrace leadership roles. The Report called for policies on shared school leadership to be developed and implemented.

  The theme chosen to observe the  World Teachers’ Day 2025  is '' Recasting teaching as a collaborative profession" . On October 5th,we will celebrate teaching as a collaborative profession, one that draws its strength from strong human connections, shared responsibilities and sustainable professional identities; The event will reaffirm the irreplaceable role of teachers and the need to reposition trust, solidarity and professional agency at the heart of education. World Teachers’ Day serves as a global moment to celebrate the teaching profession and to urge the international community to take concrete action to recast teaching as a collaborative profession.

  The Global celebration of  World Teachers’ Day  2025 is co-convened by UNESCO in collaboration with the International Labour Organization (ILO) , UNICEF and EducationInternational . 

  Globally, three quarters of countries’ pre-service training requirements include Initial teacher education ; however, North Africa, East and Southeast Asia and Oceania have the fewest countries requiring a teaching diploma. Of the different types of requirements for teaching in addition to academic level qualifications that were collected in the data, the requirement to have a teacher diploma that is granted by a teacher training program was the most prevalent. About three in four countries require a teaching diploma, and in all but three regions, South and Southeast Asia, Oceania and North Africa, 70 percent or more countries required a teaching diploma (Figure 7). Note that teacher training programs are based on national definitions and differ by country (see discussion in Box 3). Many low-income countries have alternative pathways to teaching that do not require any pre-service teaching. Many countries that have experienced rapid expansion in access to education or do not ha...

Effective teacher policies are key for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Teachers are the most important school-level factor contributing to quality education. However, an estimated 69 million additional teachers are needed globally to meet the Sustainable Development Goal’s target 4.c to increase the supply of qualified teachers, especially in low-income contexts, and to fulfil the Education 2030 Agenda. The development of holistic and comprehensive teacher policies supporting a coordinated management of the teacher workforce is an important step to ensure countries can deliver on the promise of quality education. Based on this understanding and to assist national decision-makers and education officials, the Teacher Task Force and UNESCO developed the Teacher Policy Development Guide. This publication shares the experience of nine sub-Saharan African countries which used the Guide. It contains new insights and lessons on key processes, content, structure and support that ar...