News
Pakistan to need 150,000 trained primary teachers by 2015: UN report
* UNESCO document says 4 m teachers needed worldwide by 2015ISLAMABAD: Pakistan would require more than 150,000 new trained primary schoolteachers by 2015 and over 290,000 by 2020 while recruitment of over 4 million teachers worldwide is essential to achieve the universal primary education target by 2015, reveals a United Nations document. It says that 84 percent of primary schoolteachers in Pakistan are trained and the target is to make sure the availability of “40 pupil for every trained teacher.”
According to a policy paper prepared by United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), being released on the World Teacher’s Day today (Sunday), every primary schoolteacher in Pakistan, ordinarily, imparts education to 41 students. Moreover, it states, 49 students or pupils, on an average, are receiving education from a trained primary schoolteacher and the target is to have 40 pupils for every trained schoolteacher.
The policy paper, jointly prepared by the UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics (UIS) and EFA (Education for All) Global Monitoring Report (GMR), says that Pakistan would be needing over 150,000 new teachers by 2015 and over 290,000 by 2020, to keep up with the global educational standards on primary education and to meet the demand of provision of education as a result of growing number of children to be admitted to schools.
Globally, in order to meet the UN prescribed deadline laid down in the EFA GMR – to spread, improve and promote primary education globally by the end of 2015 – the UNESCO document suggests that some 4 million teachers are required to be recruited to achieve universal primary education target by the next year.
The document points out that at least 93 countries of the world are facing acute shortage of teachers. Highlighting serious challenges involving global educational scenario, the policy paper pinpoints the apathy of countries to promote and maintain the standards of basic quality education while simply focusing on other related problems, especially, the shortage of teachers.
“In the rush to fill the chronic, global shortage of teachers, many countries are sacrificing standards and undermining progress by hiring people with little or no training,” the UNESCO paper reads. “Under pressure to fill gaps, many countries are recruiting teachers who lack the most basic training.” In one-third of countries with data, fewer than 75 percent of primary schoolteachers were trained according to national standards in 2012, it says. In the countries like Angola, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and South Sudan, this figure falls below 50 percent. “As a result, in roughly a third of countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, the GMR shows that the challenge of training existing teachers is greater than that of recruiting new teachers to the profession.” According to the document, if the (global) deadline (on improving primary education worldwide) is extended to 2030, more than 27 million teachers need to be hired, 24 million of whom will be “required to compensate for natural attrition.” At present rates, however, 28 (or 30 percent) of these 93 countries will not meet these needs, the UNESCO document says.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk