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Blog
  • 28.06.2022

Transforming our understanding of refugee teachers and teaching in contexts of forced displacement

Chris Henderson, Co-Chair, Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Teachers in Crisis Contexts (TiCC) Working Group and Teachers College, Columbia University.


In refugee-hosting contexts, teachers contribute more to children’s learning and well-being than any other school-level factor.  Refugee teachers also have strong local knowledge and the desire to contribute to better crisis response and recovery outcomes. However, despite their crucial role and the challenging context in which they ensure learning continuity, refugee teachers often do not receive the support they need.

They are visible to the humanitarian education sector, but remain largely neglected in the national education system sector reviews that drive multi-year education planning and in the budgets that address teachers’ needs. Thus, it is time to pay closer attention to the difficulties they face and to include them in the plans to achieve SDG 4.

Challenging teaching conditions

Teachers in refugee settings are faced with particularly challenging working conditions. In the regions where refugees are allowed to settle, functional classroom spaces, teaching and learning materials, and other basic resources are often missing. Their classrooms are more likely to be overcrowded, multi-aged, multi-ability, and multilingual, especially in the early years when essential literacy and numeracy skills are taught. They must often teach in shifts, covering less material in less time with lower expectations for learning achievement. They may also have to teach content in a second or third language, or they may need to use hybrid instructional approaches.

Refugee teachers also work with children and youth who have experienced or witnessed the acute and chronic suffering of their families and friends. These children and youth are more likely to present with learning or behavioural deficits related not only to the interruption of their education, but to the hardships they contend with on a daily basis.

Lack of training opportunities

Where pre-service and in-service professional development opportunities exist for refugee teachers, they are episodic with varying levels of quality. The diverse range of non-state actors providing teacher management and development support in settings of forced displacement also constrain predictable and sustained responses in meeting teachers’ professional, personal, and family needs.

An uncertain career path

Most refugee teachers live where their right to international protection is recognized. At its most basic, this means they have the right not to be forcibly returned to their home country. However, refugee protection does not automatically grant the recognition of qualifications for employment, neither does it grant access to continuous professional development opportunities when teachers are uncertified or underqualified.

Time to recognise the role of refugee teachers

So often we champion teachers and celebrate teachers’ work. However, as humanitarian sector policymakers and practitioners, we need to align our words with our actions and uphold our commitment to the profession by reimagining and transforming our understanding of teachers and the value of teachers’ work in refugee-hosting settings. Without sufficient support for and recognition of refugee teachers, education access and learning attainment for children affected by forced displacement will remain precarious and SDG Goal 4 will not be achieved. 

It is therefore time to deliver for refugee teachers the status and conditions they deserve and desperately need; it is time to make refugee teachers visible. A shift towards the inclusion of refugees in national education systems following the adoption of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) in 2018 provides an opportunity for action. This includes the provision of predictable and sustainable support for refugee teachers, continuous professional development, and access to fair and decent work conditions.

Towards a shared understanding of teachers in refugee-hosting settings

With the aim of including the above issues on the Transforming Education Summit Action Track 3 Agenda on “Teachers, Teaching, and the Teaching Profession”, and to work towards a harmonized understanding of teachers and teaching in refugee-hosting settings, UNHCR, INEE, and Education International (EI) are co-convening a meeting at the upcoming Transforming Education Pre-Summit in Paris.

We will bring together government, United Nations, international non-governmental organization, and civil society organization representatives alongside refugee teachers and youth from Chad, Kenya, and Venezuela to discuss and debate the following provocations:

  1. Who do we consider to be “teachers” in refugee hosting settings? Might new definitions and pre-conditions for entry into the profession be one part of the solution to the global teacher shortage? 
  2. How, if at all, do we recognize and regularize community and refugee teachers as part of the professional teacher workforce in refugee hosting settings?
  3. What are the limitations or barriers of current legal frameworks and financing mechanisms, and what innovative approaches exist to overcome financing challenges? 

This session will also be an opportunity to give refugee teachers and youth a platform to share their experiences and inform the agenda for transforming the provision of education in crisis settings globally.  

A key outcome of this meeting will be a memo of recommendations, produced by INEE, UNHCR and EI meeting moderators, and submitted to the UNESCO International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 for consideration and inclusion in subsequent Transforming Education Summit statements relating to Action Track 3. 

We invite you to participate in person or via webcast in this important meeting from 1.00pm to 3.00pm CET on Thursday June 30th. We need your voice to help forefront and elevate refugee teachers at the Transforming Education Summit in New York in September. 

For more details, please see the pre-summit programme here.    

Hero photo: M'Bera refugee camp, Mauritania. Photo: EU/ECHO/José Cendón

Blog
  • 24.06.2022

The Transforming Education Summit 2022

Published on 22-06-2022 on the Emirates Thinkers platform

In the latter half of September, the United Nations Organization will hold the Transforming Education Summit 2022 at its headquarters in New York, attended by the leaders of various countries of the world. In preparation for this global gathering, the Ministers of Education will meet at the end of June at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris to prepare for the upcoming summit, which will set priorities for educational work, and explore various dimensions of the educational process worldwide.

Specialist work teams have been assigned to coordinate efforts and preparations for the organization of this global event. In this article, in my capacity as a member of the High Committee preparing the reports and recommendations to be presented at the summit, I will set forth the course of the work taking place in preparation for the summit, and its main themes.

First of all, the importance of the Transforming Education Summit 2022 is attributable to the renewed challenges facing the educational sector worldwide. The experience of countries and governments during the Coronavirus pandemic, with the accompanying widespread use of distance learning technology, has cast a shadow over the course of the educational process. How will education be in the future? What are the main challenges it faces globally? These are the key questions of the upcoming summit, which revolves around five main themes:

- Theme One: Inclusive, equitable, safe and healthy schools - that is, supplying a healthy and safe educational environment that provides for gender equality in education, ensures appropriate learning during global disasters and crises, and fulfills the conditions for integrating children with disabilities into public education and in suitable rehabilitation centres; ensuring the school environment takes public health conditions into account, and students get their share of healthy nutrition, realizing the principle of "a healthy mind in a healthy body."

- Theme Two: Education and skills for life, work and sustainable development. Attaining the keys to knowledge and life skills, in addition to the skills needed for the new labour market, in particular the skills involved in creating jobs that achieve sustainable development.

- Theme Three: Teachers, teaching and the professionalization of education. This theme addresses the acute global shortage of teachers, the professionalism required of them, and their continuing development over the course of their work - i.e., providing a suitable work environment for them, in addition to training a professional educational leadership that encourages creativity and innovation.

- Theme Four: Digital learning and transformation. This involves a discussion of the issues surrounding the digital transformation of schools, and how to provide digital learning resources for all, especially free resources, in addition to ensuring the security of digital education, privacy, and maintaining the safety of students in the course of their integration into the electronic world, or what is known as digital citizenship.

- Theme Five: Funding education. This requires the allocation of appropriate budgets for education in the various countries of the world, especially given that success in implementing solutions in all the previous areas is linked to the availability of an appropriate budget. The key issue at stake in all of this is that the funds allocated for education should be directed to the educational field itself, and not wasted on matters that are of little benefit to students; as someone once said, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

Therefore, the Transforming Education Summit 2022 - with its five themes - sets out the steps for developing education worldwide, and represents an important opportunity for re-imagining education and accelerating its progress, thereby achieving development goals.

 

Event
  • 17.06.2022

Call for practice: ETF Innovative Teaching and Learning Award 2022

In the frame of the Creating New Learning initiative, the European Training Foundation (ETF) has opened a call to collect practices in the area of innovative teaching and learning. The call is open from 15 June to 22 July 2022 and aims to identify and valorise teaching practices that support new learning dynamics and that can serve as inspiration for teachers, trainers and policy-makers in the EU neighborhood and beyond. 

We are looking for practices, approaches, courses, projects, that:

  • support personalisation and differentiation of learning
  • foster new pedagogical approaches
  • use digital technologies for teaching and learning
  • increase social inclusion of learners
  • are focussed on new learning content
  • innovate the teaching curricula
  • contribute to building key competences and new skills
  • implement new assessment approaches

These practices can take place in different learning settings: initial vocational education and training, adult education, continuous professional development, higher education, informal learning, in-company training.

 

Why you should submit a practice:

  • Submitting your practice will take you no more than 15 minutes
  • By submitting an eligible practice, you will receive an ETF Open Badge recognizing your contribution, and your practice will be displayed through the ETF Community of Innovative Educators
  • If your practice is evaluated as one of the 10 most innovative ones by an international jury, you will be invited to the ETF New Learning Event in Torino, Italy, in November 2022
  • During the event, three practices will be selected and will be awarded the 2022 ETF new Learning Award.

 

Applying is easy and can be done through this online submission form. The form must be completed in English in order to allow international dissemination of the practices.

Applications must be received until the 22 of July 2022 (at 23:59 CET).*

For more information & in case of technical problems with the submission please contact us at: etf.educators-community@stepseurope.it.

Event
  • 07.06.2022

Adult educators and literacy practitioners: recasting the profession

UNESCO’s Section for Teacher Development and the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 are organizing a workshop on adult educators and literacy practitioners: recasting the profession as part of the Seventh International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VII).

The workshop will examine the working conditions and professional development of adult education teachers, particularly at the literacy and basic education level, and will identify key challenges to improve the quality of teaching and the social standing of the profession. The session will explore examples -from different world regions- concerning the institutionalization of adult education in teacher training and higher education institutions, and policy measures that have been implemented to harness the social standing, labor standards and professional development of adult education practitioners.

Recent studies and analyses of the impact of the COVID-19 on adult learning confirm that youth and adult literacy educators still find themselves in the most precarious position of any group of educators; they receive much less policy attention compared to schoolteachers; and are among the lowest paid teachers and receive the least training (UNESCO, 2020, p.2). In addition, in many world regions, adult educators are usually characterized by low -or a lack of- qualifications and specific training on the education of young people and adults who have been marginalized from basic education.

Against this background, and inspired by the renewed role of teachers depicted in the Futures of Education Commission Report (UNESCO, 2021) the panel will explore alternatives for the institutionalization and professional development of adult education teachers and will provide policy recommendations in order to recast the profession.

Guiding questions:

  • What are the main challenges facing the status of teachers in adult learning and education and their professional development?
  • What kind of public policies are needed for the institutionalization of adult education and the advancement of the teaching profession?
  • What role do universities and other teacher education institutions play in the professionalization of adult educators?
  • What existing frameworks may be useful for the development of qualifications and standards to guide this professionalization?

Format and languages:

The workshop will be fully in person. It will consist of a brief presentation of the current challenges facing adult education teachers followed by a conversation and examples of policies and education programmes aimed at improving the social standing and professional development of adult educators.

The discussion will have a global geographical scope with interpretation in English and French.

Speakers

The workshops will be moderated by Mr. Carlos Vargas, Chief of Section for Teacher Development at UNESCO and Head of Secretariat for the Teacher Task Force and it aims to bring together voices from universities, teacher education institutions, civil society, teacher organizations and regional intergovernmental organizations.

  • Mr Timothy Ireland, UNESCO Chair in Youth and Adult Education, University of Paraiba, Brazil
  • Ms Katarina Popovic, Secretary General, International Council for Adult Education
  • Mr Samba Diarry Ndiaye, Centre National de Ressources Educationnelles, Ministry of Education, Senegal
  • Mr Mohammed Bougroum, l’Institut de Formation aux Métiers de l’alphabétisation, Morocco

For more information please see here.

The session can be followed on-line here.

Event
  • 30.05.2022

Transforming Education Summit – Second public consultation on the discussion paper on teachers

Please register here

In the lead-up to the Transforming Education Summit 2022 two public consultations are being organized as part of the Action Track 3 on “Teachers, teaching and the teaching profession”.

The first global consultation held on 24 May involved a discussion of the draft issues paper and focused on teacher shortages, working conditions and teacher preparation and training and development of teacher leadership.    

The second consultation will dive deeper into these topics and focus on two questions:

  1. What national, regional and international practices have successfully tackled these challenges? Which ones can be scaled up to recommend as global initiatives?
  2. Which existing or future possible initiatives, partnerships and coalitions can be developed to bring the transformation we seek?

Action Track 3 of the Transforming Education Summit on “Teachers, teaching and the teaching profession” will address the following key issues: (a) addressing teacher shortages; (b) improving working and professional conditions for teachers; (c) improving teacher preparation and training and (d) foster teacher leadership. It will identify successful policy interventions, compile a catalogue of good practices to inspire, and, crucially, to mobilize the global education community to make concrete commitments and to take action, building where possible on existing initiatives, partnerships and coalitions.

It is being led by representatives of two member states (Nigeria and Romania) and the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 which has been officially designated as the co-lead stakeholder. The work of the Action Track is being supported by the UN Support team, comprised of the International Labor Organisation (anchor), and UNESCO (alternate), UNICEF, UNHCR, UNRWA and the World Bank.

Blog
  • 25.05.2022

Reimagining the Future: Developing Teachers’ Research and Collaborative Capacity through Teacher Education Curriculum Reform

This blog was written by Maria Teresa Tatto from Arizona State University and was prepared for the Secretariat of the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030. It was originally published on the Futures of Education Ideas Lab on 23 May 2022.


Global disruptions – whether technological, economic, social or ecological – present a challenge to sustainable education. To meet the challenge, new thinking is needed on how to organize and deliver education. In response, the International Commission on the Futures of Education has produced a critical report, Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education, which brings together inputs from students, teachers, governments and civil society. With a spirit of optimism and possibility, the report calls on societies to act urgently to guide education transformation, now and into the future.

The role of teachers in reimagining education

The report points out the transformative work of teachers in reimagining education. Teachers play a central role in the embodiment of pedagogy and curricula, as well as acting as mediators of educational opportunities toward inclusivity and sustainability. The report calls for reinforcing teaching as a profession and for teachers to ‘take up their roles’ by:

  1. Working collaboratively to provide each student with the support they need to learn;
  2. Enacting the curriculum using participatory and cooperative pedagogies while managing digital technology; and
  3. Engaging with educational research to reflect on their practice and produce knowledge.

To support teachers in playing this key role, the report advocates for teacher development as a rich and dynamic continuum of learning and experiences. It calls for public solidarity on much-needed changes to the policies that govern the selection, preparation, career trajectories and organization of teachers and the teaching profession.

Teaching as a collaborative and research-based profession

The reports’ priorities are commendable and urgently needed. However, some other considerations could provide additional nuance to the Commission’s report, if given greater weight. The report could note that teacher education curricula will need to be reformed, to align better with new expectations for teacher knowledge and roles. It is also important to recognize that teaching is intrinsically collaborative, and the role of students in this collaboration should be considered. And more thought needs to be given to what is required to properly equip teachers for a critical role in knowledge production and educational research.

Reforming the teacher education curriculum

The report rightly recommends that teachers should more often work in teams, to better engage in knowledge production, reflection and research, and further suggests that teachers should participate in public debate, dialogue and education policy. But to achieve this, a deeper cross-national examination of teacher education curricula may be required. This could help to unpack what learning opportunities exist in teacher education programmes that can support teacher agency and solidarity as a new foundation across a number of different geographies. Research can illustrate how, where and whether future and current teachers are prepared to engage deeply in this critical work during their initial teacher training, continuing professional development, and beyond. Promising examples include empirically tested approaches in developing contexts, such as the Escuela Nueva Activa (ENA) and other active learning models like flipped classrooms.

Moreover, given that teachers need to be ready to incorporate a variety of new competencies in their professional profiles, other forms of teacher support need increased attention. For example, to challenge the prescriptive lists of ‘must do’s’ that have in the past characterized top-down teacher policy, teachers must be enabled to use their voices, agency and social dialogue through their official representatives or unions. Teachers must increasingly become leaders as administrators and as professionals in pedagogical autonomy, research and public participation.

Recognizing the importance of teacher-student collaboration

By definition, teaching has never been a solitary practice. Teachers typically not only collaborate with each other – they also do so with their students. Previous research shows that teaching is inherently interactive and collaborative with students. Not all teachers manage this resource effectively, but successful teaching requires alignment with standards of good practice such as ‘achieving and maintaining classroom order and purposeful activity, gaining pupils’ attention and interest, ensuring that pupils know what they are expected to do, that they understand the content of the lessons, etc.’[1] While recognizing the importance of teacher–teacher collaboration, the report does not consider students as a fundamental resource and leaves out the important finding that students can and often do teach and assess each other, improving academic achievement. Able teachers can use formative assessments to support this practice, thereby developing authentic learning communities in their classrooms. This aspect of education could become another dimension of the new social contract for education: supporting student agency in their learning and collaboration with teachers and other students in fostering better and wider learning networks

Developing teachers’ research capacity

Collaborative research on a global scale, in which teachers, teacher educators, and researchers in different disciplines explore diverse education models, is also essential and should be a first step to enact a new social contract for education. Action research in the classroom for agentic and effective change should be emphasized: this refers to evaluative, investigative and analytical research methods designed to diagnose problems or weaknesses and help educators to develop practical solutions. Meanwhile, teachers also need to be more involved in systematic academic research in order to maintain appropriate scrutiny and enable educators to influence policy. Since both types of research are essential to help practitioners—including teachers—to reimagine a better education future, building practitioners’ capacity to engage in action and systematic research is critical. These skills are different from those needed to ensure reflective teaching, but they will be no less essential to teachers’ professional work for developing flexible, context-sensitive teaching practices.

 

Photo credit: Davide Bonaldo/Shutterstock.com

Event
  • 20.05.2022

Teacher Wellbeing Guidance Note - launch event

Register here and join us for the launch of INEE's Guidance Note: Teacher Wellbeing in Emergency Settings.

This publication is part of a larger project funded by Education Cannot Wait, to develop a Teacher Wellbeing Toolkit in order to support EiE practitioners to meet the needs of teachers in their local context.

This INEE Minimum Standards-aligned Guidance Note is an opportunity to put teacher wellbeing at the center of our response and recovery efforts in conflict and crisis-affected settings. Not just because an investment in teachers is an investment in children and adolescents, but because at this moment in history teachers deserve our unparalleled attention as an end unto itself.

We invite you to engage in this session by learning about the development and content of the Guidance Note and participating in a Q&A discussion with our panelists:

  • Abla Assaf, Education Technical Officer - Palestine, Norwegian Refugee Council
  • Amy Parker, Learning through Play Programme Lead, Save the Children Denmark – plus former TiCC co-chair
  • Chris Henderson, Co-Chair, Teachers in Crisis Contexts Collaborative, Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies and Teachers College, Columbia University
  • Julia Finder Johna, Senior Education Advisor on Education in Crisis and Conflict at USAID- plus PSS-SEL Collaborative co-chair
  • Jwalin Patel (PhD), President, Together In Development & Education Foundation
  • Nikhit D'Sa, Ed.D. Assistant Professor and Senior Associate Director of Research, Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child
  • Raksha Sule, Education Program Manager (Myanmar), People In Need.
  • Sophia D’Angelo, PhD, Independent Consultant

The webinar will take place at 1pm UTC on Wednesday 1st June 2022. Click here to convert to your time zone.

For more information please contact Rachel Smith (rachel.smith@inee.org).

Event
  • 19.05.2022

Consultation on 2023 GEM Report on technology and education

See the Consultation Report here

The 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report will examine education challenges to which appropriate use of technology can offer solutions, while recognizing that many of the solutions proposed may also be detrimental. The report will examine issues of access, equity, and inclusion in education, looking at ways through technology can help reach disadvantaged learners but also ensure more knowledge reaches more learners in more engaging and cheaper formats.

The report will also explore three system-wide conditions that need to be met for any technology in education to reach its full potential: ensuring that all learners have access to technology resources, protecting learners from the risks of technology through appropriate governance and regulation and supporting all teachers to teach, use and deal with technology effectively.

In a rapidly changing world affected by technology, and in the aftermath of the global COVID-19 pandemic, teachers face large and increasing demands to engage with technology in education and develop related competencies. As a result, this consultation, convened by the Teacher Task Force and the GEM Report, will look into the way that education systems can support all teachers to teach, use and deal with technology effectively.

Teachers face many barriers to the use of technology. Therefore, in order to identify the best ways to help teachers teach and use technology effectively, the discussion will focus on three key issues, including the lack of access, training and system support. Each area will be discussed on separate rooms:

  1. Barriers to access and equity
  2. Teacher professional development and pedagogy
  3. Systemic support and collaboration

Agenda

Agenda

This event is by invitation only, if you wish to participate or need more information, please contact Soto Echeverri, Emilia (e.soto-echeverri@unesco.org).

Event
  • 18.05.2022

Transforming Education Summit – First public consultation on the discussion paper on teachers

In the lead-up to the Transforming Education Summit 2022,  the first public consultation focused on the discussion paper prepared as part of the Action Track 3 on “Teachers, teaching and the teaching profession”.

Replay the consultation here.

The second consultation, on 14 June, will focus on the promising practices and potential new initiatives.

Action Track 3 is being led by representatives of two member states (Nigeria and Romania) and the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 has been officially designated as the co-lead stakeholder. The work of the Action Track is being supported by the UN Support team, comprised of the International Labor Organisation (anchor), and UNESCO (alternate), UNICEF, UNHCR, UNRWA and the World Bank.