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The Global Campaign for Education (a coalition of international aid agencies including ActionAid and Oxfam, teachers' unions and civil rights groups) has created some powerful resources to help children explore and understand the issues at home and in the classroom as part of their Send My Friend To School campaign. This year they have rebranded the campaign Send My Sister to School to highlight the barriers that girls in the developing world have in accessing education. You can find all their resources on the Guardian Teacher Network

The world urgently needs to recruit more than 8 million extra teachers, according to UN estimates, warning that a looming shortage of primary school teachers threatens to undermine global efforts to ensure universal access to primary education by 2015.At least 2m new teaching positions will need to be created by 2015, the UN said in a report published this week. An additional 6.2 million teachers will need to be recruited to maintain current workforces and replace those expected to retire or leave classrooms due to career changes, illnesses, or death.

According to Unesco's projections, the greatest challenges lie in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 1m teaching posts will need to be created by 2015 to meet the needs of a growing number of primary students. Population growth and the push to get all children into school by 2015 has led enrolment rates to soar in many countries, but quality of education will remain a prime concern if countries fail to get enough teachers into classrooms. A total of 350,000 teachers should be hired in sub-Saharan Africa each year until 2015 to fill new posts and compensate for teachers expected to leave the workforce, said the report.

"In many regions a low proportion of female teachers will mean fewer girls at school and consequently even fewer women teachers in the future," said Unesco's director general, Irina Bokova, in a statement on Wednesday,

Schools could save the equivalent of a teacher's salary by switching out the lights and taking energy saving measures, a charity says.

The Carbon Trust says UK secondary schools could save up to £21,500 in energy bills if they took measures. These include switching off lights and computers, turning heating down, installing insulation and more efficient lighting.

It says: "Simple measures such as switching off lights and installing more efficient heating could help the average secondary school save £21,500 in energy bills - almost equal to the annual salary of a newly qualified teacher."

Teachers in Buenos Aires have been on strike for the last two days against new laws being brought in by the city’s government The teachers are striking against plans by the right wing mayor – property tycoon Mauricio Macri to change the law so that instead of teachers being appointed by school boards, they will be appointed by the government. The teachers see this as part of the overall efforts of the government to privatise education and run down free democratic education in Argentina.

South Sudan is to phase out Arabic as the language of instruction in schools within the next three years, an official said today. The minister for General Education, Joseph Ukel, said Arabic will be gradually replaced with English as the official medium of communication in schools and public offices as enshrined in the new country’s constitution.

UNESCO staff in Gaza recruited Souktel to create an SMS alert/survey system that warns parents and their children of any danger happening near local schools. The service forms a key part of UNESCO’s Crisis and Disaster Risk Reduction project, which aims to ensure that schools are secure community spaces.

"In conflict zones, when it's not safe to leave your house to get information, mobile phones can bridge the gap and keep everyone connected," says Souktel co-founder Jacob Korenblum. "This basic technology allows aid workers, educators and local families to stay in contact at all times." 

Here’s how it works: At each school, principals and teachers are given password-protected access to a web interface, where they can send SMS alerts to all parents’ mobile phones. In an emergency, they could write, "Attack near school today, please keep your children at home." Once the violence has ended, another message could go out saying, "Shelling has stopped; please come to school this morning."