High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession launches to address the global teacher shortage and status of the profession
One of the main outcomes of the United Nations Transforming Education Summit in 2022, the High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession, brings together key stakeholders in the education sector to help tackle the growing teacher shortage around the world. Education International brings the voice of the teaching profession to the High-Level Panel.
“Teachers are leading the transformation. As a member of the High-Level Panel and as President of Education International, I will work to ensure the recommendations put forward elevate our profession, improve the status of teachers around the world, and help build the next generation of educators.”
Susan Hopgood | Education International President
Established by the United Nations’ Secretary General António Guterres, the Panel is tasked with producing a new vision and set of recommendations on the teaching profession for the benefit of teachers, students, parents, and education systems worldwide.
The High-Level Panel aims to produce a set of evidence-informed recommendations on how to deliver on the commitment that every learner has a professionally trained, qualified, and well-supported teacher and can flourish in a transformed education system.
The Panel will map out relevant research and evidence to formulate action-oriented recommendations for governments, policymakers, employers’ and workers’ organisations, and other stakeholders to promote better conditions of work for teachers and educators. The recommendations will be in line with existing international labour standards and international standards on education and teaching personnel.
“The establishment of the UN’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession is a great victory for teachers everywhere. The world recognizes both the irreplaceable role of teachers and the scale and depth of the global teacher shortage and why urgent solutions must be found. As the global voice of the teaching profession, EI will make sure that the analysis and recommendations are informed by the wisdom and experience of those working at the grassroots level. We will collect insights from classrooms and unions around the world and bring those voices to the Panel. Together we can effect real change for millions of teachers and students everywhere.”
David Edwards | Education International General Secretary
Six imperatives for the future of the teaching profession
The High-Level Panel will consider six imperatives for the future of the teaching profession:
- Quality - transformative role, standards, data, qualifications, teacher development as well as learning (professional learning and development), evaluation, accountability, career development, leadership, agency, and professionalism;
- Equity, diversity, and inclusion - composition, identity, networks, community, place-based responsibility, non-discrimination, and gender equality;
- Humanity - wellbeing, quality of life, human rights, commitment, moral purpose, passion, status and recognition, trust, voice and empowerment, and learning to be and to live together;
- Sustainability – long-term planning, efficacious systems, generational succession, collective autonomy, and diversity;
- Dignity – terms and conditions of employment and working conditions, salaries, social dialogue including collective bargaining, labour rights, and academic freedom (professional autonomy);
- Innovation and leadership – commitment to transformative changes, scaling up micro-innovations, technological tools, teacher-led research, and development hubs.
The scope will cover educators from early childhood through tertiary education, including technical and vocational education and training.
Members of the High-Level Panel
Co-Chairpersons
- H.E. Ms. Kersti Kaljulaid | Former President, Republic of Estonia
- H.E. Ms. Paula-Mae Weekes | Former President, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Members
- Ligia Deca | Minister of Education, Romania
- Ida Fauziyah | Minister of Manpower, Indonesia
- Matsie Angelina Motshekga | Minister of Basic Education, South Africa
- Jaime Perczyk | Minister of Education, Argentina
- Jutta Urpilainen | Commissioner for International Partnerships, European Commission
- Sebastien Berger | Executive Director, Global Student Forum
- Gerhard F. Braun | Chair, German Employers Association’s Education Committee
- Mamadou Cellou Souare | La Confédération Générale des Entreprises de Guinée
- Linda Darling-Hammond | President and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute and Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education Emeritus at Stanford University
- Susan Hopgood | President, Education International
- Gorgui Sow | Independent Education Policy and Advocacy Specialist
- Manal Hdaife | Primary School Principal, Lebanon, and Chair of the Arab Countries Cross-Regional Structure of Education International
- Mike Thiruman | General Secretary of the Singapore Teachers Union
- Tiago Pitta e Cunha | CEO of Oceano Azul Foundation
- Denise Vaillant | Academic Director, Institute of Education, ORT University (Uruguay) and Chair of the Joint ILO–UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendations concerning Teaching Personnel
- Andria Zafirakou | Winner of 2018 Global Teacher Prize, United Kingdom
Ex-Officio members:
- Gilbert F. Houngbo | Director-General, International Labour Organization
- Audrey Azoulay | Director-General, UNESCO
- Leonardo Garnier Rimolo | Special Adviser for the Transforming Education Summit
The High-Level Panel will be supported by a joint ILO-UNESCO Secretariat, administered by the International Labour Organization. Click here to access the website.
Education International will continue to work with its member organisations across the world to ensure that the voices and realities of teachers are represented at all levels. Teachers everywhere will also continue to mobilise in the framework of EI’s Go Public! Fund Education campaign, an urgent call for governments to fully fund public education and to invest in teachers, the single most important factor in achieving quality education.
