Historic Santiago Consensus puts teachers at heart of education transformation

Ministers, teacher unions and education leaders meeting at the World Summit on Teachers in Chile have adopted the Santiago Consensus, a comprehensive framework that commits governments to address the global shortage of 50 million teachers through concrete policy action.

The Consensus, developed over two intensive days of negotiations, establishes six priority areas for transforming the teaching profession: strengthening teacher policies, revolutionising professional development, establishing genuine social dialogue, securing sustainable financing, preparing teachers for the digital future, and ensuring inclusion and equity.

“The Santiago Consensus demonstrates the power of organised teachers speaking with one unified voice," said David Edwards, General Secretary of Education International. “We return to our countries carrying more than words on paper, we carry a renewed mandate for change. This consensus affirms what we have always known: without teachers, there is no future. Now we have global recognition of that truth backed by concrete commitments for action. But the real work begins now, holding governments accountable to these commitments and ensuring teacher voices remain central to education policymaking.”

“This is the decisive moment to transform the United Nations recommendations on the Teaching Profession into concrete actions that reach every classroom, every school, every educational community,” added EI’s President Mugwena Maluleke. “Children are watching. The future is watching. And history will judge, not by what we promised, but by what we prioritized. Not by what we said, but by what we funded. Let it be said that in Santiago, we chose courage over comfort, justice over silence, and education over excuses.

Six pillars for transformation

The Santiago consensus demands comprehensive national teacher policies covering the entire professional lifecycle, with governments committing to decent working conditions, competitive salaries, realistic workloads and respect for teacher well-being, recognising that pedagogical autonomy and peer collaboration are essential to performance and retention.

The framework establishes six priority action areas that directly respond to demands Education International has championed through the Go Public! Fund Education campaign:

Comprehensive teacher policies that address the entire professional lifecycle, from recruitment to career progression, with particular attention to rural and underserved areas where shortages are most acute.
Lifelong professional development that transforms teacher education into a collaborative endeavour, ensuring clear connections between initial training, induction, mentoring, and continuous learning opportunities.
Social dialogue and participation that establishes permanent, transparent mechanisms for teacher involvement in policymaking. The consensus explicitly recognises teacher unions as legitimate partners in education governance.
Sustainable financing that goes beyond rhetoric to practical commitments, including domestic resource mobilisation and innovative financing mechanisms that protect education as a public good.
Future-ready teaching that strengthens digital and AI competencies whilst preserving the relational dimension of learning. Significantly, the consensus calls for adopting UNESCO's AI Competency Framework for Teachers.
Inclusion and equity that diversifies the teaching workforce to reflect community diversity and tackles structural barriers preventing marginalised groups from entering the profession.

The Consensus addresses chronic underfunding by calling for domestic resource mobilisation to support comprehensive teacher policies, while explicitly recognising the worsening debt crisis affecting low and middle-income countries.

It demands solidarity-based funds aligned with SDG Target 4.c to finance the teaching profession, including specialised support for teachers in emergencies and crisis contexts, through regular salaries, psychosocial support and international recognition of qualifications for refugee teachers.

Crucially, the framework recognises young people as essential stakeholders in addressing teacher shortages, calling for “youth-led initiatives” that promote teaching as a viable and rewarding career path. This forward-thinking approach acknowledges that today's learners represent tomorrow's potential teaching workforce, making their engagement central to long-term solutions rather than peripheral to policy development.

Protecting what matters most

Perhaps most significantly, the consensus enshrines a principle Education International has fought to establish: recognising the teacher-student relationship as part of humanity's common heritage. This represents more than symbolic recognition—it's a commitment to preserving human connection in education against the encroachment of purely technological solutions.

The document explicitly states that education technologies must "serve humanity and should not undermine the essential role of socialisation and human interaction in education." This language reflects EI’s advocacy for education that remains fundamentally relational, not transactional.

“Santiago makes it unmistakable: the teacher and student relationship is part of humanity’s common heritage and must be protected and properly resourced”, said Manuela Mendonça, member of EI's executive board and the Federação Nacional dos Professores (FENPROF) in Portugal. “No technology can replace that human bond. Defending it is defending a democratic public school. That means time for teaching and professional autonomy, so technology serves learning, not the other way around.”

From consensus to action

Moving beyond aspirational language, the Santiago Consensus establishes concrete accountability mechanisms. Governments will report progress through the SDG4 Knowledge Hub, supported by strengthened regional follow-up, and are encouraged to reflect the summit’s commitments in their Voluntary National Reviews.

It also invites Member States to reconvene a World Summit on Teachers in the coming years to take stock, track progress, and keep teachers at the center of the post-2030 agenda.

On financing, the Consensus calls for successful replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait, underlining that international cooperation remains essential to address teacher shortages, especially in crisis and low-resource contexts.

The summit itself showed the power of coordinated advocacy. Education International came to Santiago representing 33 million education workers with unified demands: fair pay, decent working conditions and job security, realistic workloads, safe and well-equipped schools, professional autonomy, and meaningful participation in policy. Throughout, EI stressed a simple truth: teacher shortages are the result of systematic underinvestment, not inevitable demographics.

The Consensus now commits governments to the structural changes required to make teaching a well-supported, respected profession. It builds on 18 months of advocacy following the UN recommendations on the teaching profession. EI and its member organisations return home with concrete governmental commitments—a platform for organising, for bargaining, and for holding governments to account.

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