Teachers Without Borders

UNESCO is launching a Teacher Education Course on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development (CCESD) in late 2011

First, it helps teachers to understand the causes, dynamics and impacts of climate change through a holistic lens. Second, teachers are exposed to a range of pedagogical approaches that they can use in their own school environment. This includes engagement in whole school and school-in-community approaches. Third, teachers can develop their capacities to facilitate students’ community based learning.  Fourth, teachers can develop future oriented and transformative capacities in facilitating climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction learning..    

In a nutshell, the course is designed to give teachers confidence in facilitating  CCESD inside and outside the classroom so that they can help young people understand the causes and consequences of climate change, bring about changes in attitudes and behaviors to reduce the severity of future climate change, and build resilience  in the face of climate change that are already present.

Many schools across the country were on Tuesday shut down by a teachers' strike called to pressure the government to recruit an additional 28,000 teachers. The strike does not affect private schools. In Nairobi, the Kenya National Union of Teachers said the strike would continue until their demands are met.

Across OECD countries, governments are having to work with shrinking public budgets while designing policies to make education more effective and responsive to growing demand. The 2011 edition of Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries’ performance. It provides a broad array of comparable indicators on education systems and represents the consensus of professional thinking on how to measure the current state of education internationally.

ISBN: 9789264114203 Publication: 13/9/2011 (click on the image to download the publication)   Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators Across OECD countries,

The indicators show who participates in education, how much is spent on it, and how education systems operate. They also illustrate a wide range of educational outcomes, comparing, for example, student performance in key subjects and the impact of education on earnings and on adults’ chances of employment.

According to a report released by the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) on Wednesday, South Africa is in dire need of good, skilled teachers. "South Africa's education system is underperforming, especially in terms of maths and science results. When compared to many other developing countries, our expenditure on education is not matched by the results, and research shows decisively that good teaching is vital for better results," Ann Bernstein, the founding director of CDE, told journalists.

Research dating back to 2005 demonstrates that 16 581 mathematics teachers were present in the Eastern Cape but only 7 090 were teaching the subject. But 5 032 were teaching mathematics who were not qualified to do so.

Of those who are pursuing a career in the classroom, only two-thirds spend 46% of their time actively teaching and of those hardly any teach on a Friday.

October 19, 2011 (KAMPALA) – Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni says his country will send teachers to South Sudan as an effort to help the new nation build its human capacity and recover from decades of conflict that have badly affected literacy and the education system. Speaking at the opening of a leaders retreat for his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) on Monday in the town of Kyanykwanzi, president Museveni said this will aid job creation for his citizens.

Shortages do not only concern developing countries. Although Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for more than half the demand, the United States, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Sweden are among the 112 countries suffering from the same problem.   Insufficient staffing to ensure universal primary education by 2015 affects the different regions as follows: Sub-Saharan Africa (1,115,000 teachers required), Arab States (-243,000 teachers), South and West Asia (-292,000), North America and Western Europe (-155,000). Central and Eastern Europe, Central and East Asia, Latin American and the Caribbean on the other hand together account for only 11 % of the global shortage of teachers required to meet the 2015 target for achieving universal primary education.   These figures, however, do not take into account the number of teachers leaving the profession for a variety of reasons such as retirement, illness, or career change. To meet the total shortage, 6.1 million teachers will be needed between 2009 and 2015.  

The Scholastic project found that teachers are desperate for more support. Three kinds rose to the top: more involvement from parents, more engagement from school leaders and higher quality materials to use in the classroom. The teachers who took the survey were given a list of 15 things that might help to retain the best teachers. Higher salaries ranked 11th on the list, behind benefits like more time for preparation and opportunities for professional development.