Date and Time:
5 October 2022 at 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM (Bangkok time/GMT+7)
Organizer: UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education (UNESCO Bangkok), and Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO)
Event Type: Webinar
Where: Youtube
Teachers are widely acknowledged as the most determinant factor for the quality of education. Worldwide school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have further deepened the public appreciation of the important and challenging work of teachers. After school re-openings, teachers are shouldering the increased responsibility of making up for the tremendous learning losses and speeding up learning recovery.
Teachers are also regarded as a crucial force in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4, which is a global commitment to ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. A key target of this SDG is to substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers by 2030.
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely hampered the global progress towards SDG 4. Even before the pandemic, many countries in the Asia-Pacific region and other parts of the world were already off track to achieving SDG 4. While hundreds of millions of children were out of school, many of those in school were not learning properly and not acquiring the minimum literacy and numeracy skills, let alone the so-called twenty-first century competences indispensable for them to effectively adapt and contribute to rapidly changing societies.
In response to the global learning crisis, the United Nations convened the Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, mobilizing world leaders and key stakeholders of education for collective commitments and solutions. One of the thematic action tracks of the Summit is focused on teachers, teaching and the teaching profession. Acknowledging teachers as being ‘the lifeblood of education systems’ in his opening remarks at the Summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for the international community to tackle the global shortage of teachers and to enhance teacher quality, by raising their status and ensuring that they receive adequate salaries and enjoy decent working conditions and continuous professional learning opportunities.
The Bangkok Statement 2022 delivered by the 2nd Asia-Pacific Regional Education Minister’s Conference (APREMC-II) also emphasized that ‘Teachers are at the heart of education transformation’ and that ‘effectively transforming education requires professional teachers who are highly motivated, valued in society, well-trained and supported throughout their careers’. The Statement calls for policy measures to be taken to ‘make the teaching profession more attractive, including through improved recruitment processes, working conditions, continuous professional development and career pathways based on merits’.
Against this backdrop, UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization are co-organizing a regional webinar to celebrate the 2022 World Teachers’ Day under the theme ‘The Transformation of Education Begins with Teachers’.
Established in 1994, World Teachers’ Day is a global commemoration of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers. More than half a century later, the recommendations in this historic document concerning teachers’ initial and continuing training, recruitment, working conditions, career progression, and participation in educational decision-making remain highly relevant.
The UNESCO-SEAMEO Webinar will not only reflect on the persistent issues and challenges for the teaching profession, but also discuss policies, practices and partnerships for empowering teachers for learning recovery and education transformation. It will also showcase various innovations in this regard by teachers across the region.
The Webinar will be held on 5 October 2022 at 9 am – 12 pm (Bangkok Time / GMT+7). It will be broadcast live on YouTube: https://link.seameo.org/WTD2022. The agenda of the Webinar is available here.
Related resources
- UNESCO global webpage for the World Teachers’ Day
- UNESCO global events in celebration of the World Teachers’ Day 2022
- Joint message by the World Teachers’ Day co-convening agencies
- Webcast link for the 2022 World Teachers’ Day and Hamdan Prize Ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters
- Seven stories of teachers who transform education through innovative practices
- World Teachers’ Day 2022 poster
- World Teachers’ Day 2022 social media package
