The COVID-19 pandemic has taken an enormous toll on education. Beyond school closures and lost learning, countless educators, union members, and leaders of our profession have died. The losses are staggering. Every day we receive notices from around the globe of colleagues who are no longer with us.

The death of one educator is a tragedy for their family, students, and community. The death of so many educators around the world has an absolutely devastating impact on the profession and education as a whole.

Teacher memorial

In the lead up to this year’s World Teachers’ Day – October 5th, 2021 – Education International has launched a memorial website to honour and remember the colleagues we have lost - www.teachercovidmemorial.org. Please use the website to share the stories of friends, colleagues, mentors who have passed away during the pandemic. We want to remember their names and pass on their legacy.

Tribute event

This World Teachers’ Day, Education International will host a global tribute event in their honour. On October 5th we will come together to honour those we lost and who are forever present as we carry out their legacy and celebrate their life’s work, their dedication to their students, colleagues and their profession. We will commit ourselves to taking their mission forward as we organise for better working conditions and vaccine equity.

Register at www.teachercovidmemorial.org/tribute-event/ and join us on October 5th from 1 p.m. CEST. The event will feature interpretation in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Russian.

REPLAY THE MEETING RECORDING.

This year’s international celebration of the World Teachers’ Day (WTD) focuses on teachers contributions in recovery processes following especially the Covid-19 crisis and its long lasting effects on education and learning in countries the world over. 

Capitalizing on the WTD 2020 celebration in the Arab Region (8 October 2020) organized by the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 (TTF) and UNESCO Office in Beirut, that focused on teacher leadership, this year’s WTD celebration will tackle more specifically what changed (and what needs to change) with regard to teacher continuous professional development. Along with other measures, such as those related to salaries, working conditions and social protection, quality continuous professional development is of utmost importance in preparing and supporting teachers to be at the heart of education recovery. 

Webinar topics

The webinar guest speakers and participants are invited to focus their intervention around several questions, as follows:

• How did the Covid-19 crisis impact teachers in the Arab Region?

• What (new) needs and challenges in terms of teacher professional development have occurred/been identified?

• What are some examples of successful/effective/innovative responses in terms of teacher professional development?

• What lessons and policy recommendations can be drawn to date.

Concept Note with draft agenda

REGISTER HERE

Around the world, teachers responded to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic by innovating both in person and in virtual classrooms. However, to be able to continue innovation to support education recovery, teachers need an environment that values the autonomy and leadership necessary to seize opportunities to depart from established practice.

This international webinar is part of the global celebrations to mark World Teachers’ Day 2021. The event will showcase innovations in teaching and learning fostered by individuals and organizations. This will include projects from the UNESCO-Hamdan Prize which celebrates innovative capacity to support teachers. It will also highlight some of the main findings and powerful examples from the open crowdsourcing of teachers’ insights and innovations during the pandemic, which was led by the OECD, UNESCO and the Teacher Task Force in early 2021 through the OECD’s Global Teaching InSights platform. It will aim to also examine the environments and policies necessary to ensure that these innovative practices continue even after in-person schooling resumes.

Join us to celebrate teacher innovations this World Teachers' Day!

Please register here.

Photo credit: Mukesh Kumar Jwala/Shutterstock.com.

To mark the global celebrations for World Teachers’ Day, ActionAid, UNESCO, the Teacher Task Force and Education International are collaborating to organize a 90-minute webinar, Financing teachers and teaching in the post pandemic recovery on the 8th October 2021 at 9:00-10:30 GMT to highlight:

• The importance of safeguarding financing to education and investing in teachers and the education workforce
• Strategies and measures governments can take to ensure adequate financial allocations are made to ensure enough teachers are recruited, deployed, remunerated and supported
• Ways teachers themselves can play a more active role in the decision-making process at national/decentralized levels

The webinar will bring together civil society representatives teachers/teacher union members and  government representatives, to discuss and debate issues based on existing and emerging research evidence.

Speakers include representatives from:

• Action Aid
• Nigerian Teachers Union
• Ministry officials from Burkina Faso, Malawi and Nepal
• TaxEd Alliance
• UNESCO
• Education International

With closing remarks from UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Education, Stefania Giannini.

Please register here.

Photo credit: © European Union, 2021 (photographer: Olympia de Maismont).

The webinar aims to improve understanding of how teacher education can be fundamentally transformed to ensure that schools and the larger education system become more inclusive, a goal of inclusivity that will ultimately improve the quality of education for all children.

Objectives

1. To raise understanding among partners of the importance of transforming the initial teacher training curriculum and the continuing of professional teacher development priorities
2. To share research and learning on ‘best practice models’ for teacher development and practice, which aims to enhance innovative inclusive pedagogy and to ‘build back better’ after the COVID-19 pandemic
3. To share ‘best practice’ examples from the region on how to support teachers providing individualised attention to children with disabilities, as well as to school managers to drive whole whole-school change
4. To create momentum and collaboration potential across various stakeholders for the purpose of aligning technical resources at the country and global levels, thereby improving teacher training curricula that adhere to principles of inclusion in line with global commitments

 
Target Audience

The target audience for the webinar includes regional, national and international level education stakeholders (including both policymakers and implementers) interested in reliable teacher training resources promoting inclusive education for all learners.

Working Language

English will be the working language of the webinar; live captioning and sign language will be made available.

Registration link

https://leonardcheshire.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bN072lrKTjSIgwZZGceH8A

For more information, please visit: https://bangkok.unesco.org/content/teacher-training-and-curriculum-developing-teachers-understanding-inclusive-principles

The webinar aims to improve understanding of how teacher education can be fundamentally transformed to ensure that schools and the larger education system become more inclusive, a goal of inclusivity that will ultimately improve the quality of education for all children.

Objectives

1. To raise understanding among partners of the importance of transforming the initial teacher training curriculum and the continuing of professional teacher development priorities
2. To share research and learning on ‘best practice models’ for teacher development and practice, which aims to enhance innovative inclusive pedagogy and to ‘build back better’ after the COVID-19 pandemic
3. To share ‘best practice’ examples from the region on how to support teachers providing individualised attention to children with disabilities, as well as to school managers to drive whole whole-school change
4. To create momentum and collaboration potential across various stakeholders for the purpose of aligning technical resources at the country and global levels, thereby improving teacher training curricula that adhere to principles of inclusion in line with global commitments

 
Target Audience

The target audience for the webinar includes regional, national and international level education stakeholders (including both policymakers and implementers) interested in reliable teacher training resources promoting inclusive education for all learners.

Working Language

English will be the working language of the webinar; live captioning and sign language will be made available.

Registration link

https://leonardcheshire.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bN072lrKTjSIgwZZGceH8A

For more information, please visit: https://bangkok.unesco.org/content/teacher-training-and-curriculum-developing-teachers-understanding-inclusive-principles

The webinar aims to improve understanding of how teacher education can be fundamentally transformed to ensure that schools and the larger education system become more inclusive, a goal of inclusivity that will ultimately improve the quality of education for all children.

Objectives

1. To raise understanding among partners of the importance of transforming the initial teacher training curriculum and the continuing of professional teacher development priorities
2. To share research and learning on ‘best practice models’ for teacher development and practice, which aims to enhance innovative inclusive pedagogy and to ‘build back better’ after the COVID-19 pandemic
3. To share ‘best practice’ examples from the region on how to support teachers providing individualised attention to children with disabilities, as well as to school managers to drive whole whole-school change
4. To create momentum and collaboration potential across various stakeholders for the purpose of aligning technical resources at the country and global levels, thereby improving teacher training curricula that adhere to principles of inclusion in line with global commitments

 
Target Audience

The target audience for the webinar includes regional, national and international level education stakeholders (including both policymakers and implementers) interested in reliable teacher training resources promoting inclusive education for all learners.

Working Language

English will be the working language of the webinar; live captioning and sign language will be made available.

Registration link

https://leonardcheshire.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bN072lrKTjSIgwZZGceH8A

For more information, please visit: https://bangkok.unesco.org/content/teacher-training-and-curriculum-developing-teachers-understanding-inclusive-principles

**Watch the replay in English and French.**

UNHCR and the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 are pleased to invite you to a webinar organised in the framework of the Norwegian Teacher Initiative: Strengthening Multi-Partner Cooperation to Support Teacher Policy and Improve Learning. 

The increase in crises and emergencies affecting education around the world, including the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in forced displacement, has demonstrated the need for thoughtful crisis-sensitive planning in education, including in national teacher policies. As frontline workers, teachers are best placed to support the learning and well-being of children and young people displaced by conflict or crisis and to prevent them from dropping out of school, provided that they themselves receive adequate support. Teachers can also play a key role in crisis-sensitive planning as long as they are properly trained, supported and equipped.

This webinar on Crisis-Sensitive Planning in Emergency and Displacement Situations will build on the Guidance Note on Developing a Crisis-Sensitive Teacher Policy, jointly developed by UNESCO, UNHCR, ILO, and UNICEF in 2020 under the Norwegian Teacher Initiative (NTI). It will highlight some of the key provisions needed to ensure that a teacher policy is also a crisis-sensitive policy. The webinar will also launch a consultation process to create a new module on Crisis-Sensitive Teacher Policy which will complement the Teacher Policy Development Guide developed by the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030.

For more information see the concept note. To register, click here.

Simultaneous interpretation will be provided in English and French. If you have any questions about the webinar, contact berquin@unhcr.org.

Photo credit: UNHCR/Eduardo Soteras

**Watch the replay in English and French.**

The ITEN Virtual Seminar 2021 aims to bring together more than 10,000 educational leaders from across the world to share promising policies, programs, and practices related to STEM teacher education. This seminar will use a highly interactive format to allow for virtual networking, poster sessions, and workshops, as well as more traditional presentations. See a draft agenda on the website.

We extend to all policymakers, teacher training institutions, and classroom teachers of all grade levels (early childhood through graduate levels) the invitation to participate in the event as a contributor or regular attendee. The call for contributions is open until August 1, and regular attendees may register up until the day of the event.

WHO SHOULD COME?
Teachers, teacher educators, policymakers, and anyone interested in STEM teacher education.

WHAT TOPICS ARE WE INTERESTED IN?

• Policies related to STEM teacher education
• Programs related to STEM teacher education
• Practices related to STEM teacher education, teaching, and teacher leadership
• Equity in STEM teaching

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY STEM TEACHER EDUCATION?

We adopt a broad, inclusive definition, which includes initial and continuing education of teachers who teach STEM topics (science, technology, engineering and mathematics, both as single-subject courses as well as through integration) across all grade levels.

HOW CAN I PARTICIPATE? 
    #1: Regular attendee
    #2: Poster contributor
    #3: Workshop contributor

WILL I GET A CERTIFICATE?
Regular attendees receive a certificate of attendance for each day upon completion of an evaluation.
Contributors receive an additional 10 hours of professional growth for each accepted contribution upon completion of an evaluation.

DOES IT COST TO ATTEND?
No! Participation is free and open to the public.

HOW IS THIS EVENT RELATED TO MESHGuides and the Teacher Task Force?

The “Supporting STEM Teachers” thematic group of the Teacher Task Force, led by ITEN and MESHGuides, will identify honorable mentions from among contributions presented at the ITEN Virtual Seminar that show particular promise for their quality and relevance to STEM teacher education and their potential for generalizability and scalability. Authors of honorable mentions will be invited to participate in a multi-month project to create a multi-lingual MESHGuide and accompanying report to serve as a reference for STEM teacher education around the world.

For more information, write to ITEN Coordinator, Rebecca Vieyra, at rvieyra@oas.org.

Global School Leaders and the World Bank will host a South to South knowledge exchange webinar series on school leadership that will kick off on Wednesday July 21, 2021 at 12:00-1:30pm GMT. The theme of this series is “The role of school leaders across the globe in managing COVID 19 and tackling the learning crisis.”

The aim of the gathering is to facilitate  knowledge sharing across large-scale programs and initiatives in response to the growing learning crisis, exacerbated by COVID-19. It will bring together academic, government, NGO, and foundation representatives from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Participants will include government officials, academics and development partners, non-governmental organizations and students. More details can be found in the attached agenda.

Sessions will run for 1.5 hours and speakers will be a part of a moderated panel. A Q&A session will follow the panel discussion. The list of webinar topics are provided below:

• Session 1 (July 21) - How is the role of the school leader evolving to meet the needs of crisis management? Register here
• Session 2 (September 8) - What are we learning from recent evaluations of school leadership capacity building?
• Session 3 (October 6) – What are the enabling system conditions needed for strong school leaders to thrive?

Follow GSL HERE for Twitter updates and upcoming information on panelists and future webinars.