The British Council's updated (2026) position outlines our commitment to promoting inclusive, high-quality education which is contextually grounded and responsive to learners’ linguistic realities. We will be formally launching the paper globally at an online event at 10am (UK time) on 6th May 2026.
The online event will be an opportunity to consider approaches to languages and, more specifically, the role of English within education systems. During the session, we will share the core messages of our updated position and there will be an expert panel discussion featuring a range of global speakers and perspectives, as well as an opportunity for discussion.
The paper itself can be consulted on our website and you can sign up for the event here.
The British Council's updated (2026) position outlines our commitment to promoting inclusive, high-quality education which is contextually grounded and responsive to learners’ linguistic realities. We will be formally launching the paper globally at an online event at 10am (UK time) on 6th May 2026.
The online event will be an opportunity to consider approaches to languages and, more specifically, the role of English within education systems. During the session, we will share the core messages of our updated position and there will be an expert panel discussion featuring a range of global speakers and perspectives, as well as an opportunity for discussion.
The paper itself can be consulted on our website and you can sign up for the event here.
On 4 March, the Teacher Task Force and UNESCO will co-organize the webinar “Empowering refugee teachers through recognition: A sustainable response to teacher shortages in crisis-affected contexts.” The session will bring together ministries of education, recognition authorities, teacher councils, development partners and refugee teachers themselves to discuss practical solutions to teacher shortages. The Teacher Task Force Secretariat will help lead the discussion, emphasizing the importance of inclusive teacher policies that recognize the qualifications, experience and professional rights of refugee educators.
Education plays a critical role in providing stability, protection, and a sense of belonging for learners affected by displacement, conflict, and crises. As emergencies become increasingly prolonged, frequent, and interconnected, their impact on education systems has deepened existing inequalities linked to poverty, discrimination, and political and economic instability. In such contexts, teachers are often the backbone of education responses, working under extremely challenging conditions to support both learners and communities.
Globally, the world faces a projected shortage of 44 million teachers by 2030, as highlighted in the UNESCO & Teacher Task Force Global Report on Teachers. This shortage is particularly acute in crisis-affected and refugee-hosting contexts, where limited resources, overcrowded classrooms, and insufficient financing severely constrain education quality and access. Teacher shortages disproportionately affect learners from disadvantaged backgrounds and undermine progress toward SDG 4, especially Target 4.c on increasing the supply of qualified teachers.
In many refugee-hosting regions, refugee teachers already make up a substantial share of the teaching workforce. For example, in the Eastern Horn of Africa, nearly half of primary-level teachers serving refugee learners are themselves refugees. Despite their qualifications and experience, most remain unrecognized by national authorities, often employed in informal or assistant roles, without contracts, professional status, or adequate remuneration. Legal and administrative barriers including restrictive licensing requirements, lack of documentation, and high recognition costs—continue to prevent their full integration into national education systems.
These challenges are compounded by severe funding gaps. In Uganda alone, projections for 2026 indicate a shortfall of more than 2,500 teachers, with pupil–teacher ratios in refugee-hosting schools reaching between 117:1 and 200:1. Current funding gaps represent USD 5.5 million for primary education, USD 2.86 million for secondary education, and USD 400,000 for learners with disabilities, and threaten the continuity of learning for hundreds of thousands of refugee and host-community learners.
Recognizing and integrating refugee teachers represents a cost-effective and sustainable solution to address these shortages. Enabling refugee teachers’ professional recognition and licensing is faster and more efficient than training new teachers, while also reducing long-term dependence on humanitarian funding by integrating educators into national payrolls and social protection systems.
To support this approach, UNESCO introduced the UNESCO Qualifications Passport (UQP), and upscaled the recognition level towards regulated professions, such as teaching professions. Building on this mechanism, UNESCO and the Teacher Task Force are supporting Member States to develop regional and international frameworks for cross-border recognition of qualifications, connecting humanitarian responses with long-term development planning.
This webinar will provide a platform to discuss policy solutions, share country experiences, and advocate for increased investment in refugee teachers, in line with the Santiago Consensus adopted at the World Summit on Teachers. The Consensus reaffirmed teachers as the cornerstone of education systems, called for inclusive teacher policies across the career continuum, and emphasized the need for teaching workforces that reflect the diversity of their communities, including refugees.
This webinar aims to:
Key Guiding Questions
Format
Opening: Carlos Vargas, Chief of the UNESCO Section for Teacher Development and Head of the Teacher Task force Secretariat
SDG4 Youth & Students Network
UNHCR Kenya
Save the Children
Zambia Qualifications Authority
Jigsaw Education
Closing: Lily Neyestani-Hailu, Chief of UNESCO Section of Migration, Displacement, Emergencies and Education a.i.
Participation is open to all interested stakeholders: https://unesco-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aEC_qZnuQoqf6Su9o9TkGQ
Photo: Dietmar Temps/Shutterstock.com
2025 marked a year full of engaging opportunities, fruitful discussions, and productive advancements towards achieving SDG 4 target 4.c through the work of the Teacher Task Force (TTF), especially amid ever-changing geopolitical shifts. Activities in 2025 continued to be structured around knowledge production and dissemination, advocacy, and national and regional policy learning, marking the final year of our 2022-2025 Strategic Plan.
Month to month, the TTF raised awareness and expanded knowledge across key issues concerning teachers: from building AI competencies to promoting collaboration to advocating for greater financing of the teaching profession.
Moving with the same momentum into 2026 and beginning of a new Strategic Plan cycle, the TTF enters another year full of meaningful dialogue, reflection and stocktaking around innovative policies, and global action aimed at improving teachers’ working conditions, education and well-being. As the year comes to an end, it is important to reflect on the accomplishments from 2025 that will set the pace for the upcoming year.
The TTF participated in dozens of global events prioritizing sustainable teacher development initiatives, ultimately leading to one of the largest initiatives of the year, the World Summit on Teachers in Santiago de Chile. Building on the 2024 Global Report on Teachers (GRT) and the 14th Policy Dialogue Forum (PDF), the Summit culminated in the adoption of the Santiago Consensus, which was developed collaboratively under the auspices of UNESCO and the TTF, the SDG4-Education 2030 High-Level Steering Committee, youth networks, teachers and organizations. At its core, the Santiago Consensus underscores the indispensable role of teachers in education systems worldwide and recognizes the key role that the TTF plays and should play in fostering teacher policy development and implementation.
Youth engagement formed part of the TTF’s wider advocacy and partnership work in 2025. Collaboration with the SDG4 Youth & Student Network supported dialogue around the Santiago Consensus and broader global exchanges on addressing teacher shortages and transforming the profession into one that is respected and empowered.
World Teachers’ Day served as another successful opportunity to advocate for teachers. This year’s theme, “Recasting teaching as a collaborative profession,” illustrated the significance of collaboration among teachers, an invaluable facet that will characterize the profession moving forward. The 2025 World Teachers’ Day fact sheet sheds more light on ever-evolving trends in the teaching profession and examines how to cultivate collective thinking.
The vast knowledge produced by the network continued to spearhead advocacy campaigns and played an influential role in informing political decisions aimed at improving teacher conditions, beginning with further dissemination of the 2024 Global Report on Teachers. The TTF successfully launched the Portuguese version of the report in Brasília and the Spanish version through three national launches in Madrid, Seville and Valencia, as well as a regional launch in Chile for Latin America, strengthening advocacy efforts at both regional and national level. In parallel, work advanced on the forthcoming 2026 edition through Editorial Board meetings.
New evidence also emerged this year, such as Costing and financing the teaching profession: A strategic investment in education, a paper offering strategic guidance for governments and education stakeholders on funding the profession. Promoting and protecting teacher agency in the age of artificial intelligence and its quick guide are that support understanding of major advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and how these can be adapted to teachers’ needs. Both papers set the course for the future of the education agenda, highlighting strategies to finance the teaching profession and analyzing the role of AI in classrooms.
Developed in line with World Teachers’ Day 2025, the World Teachers’ Day fact sheet, published by the TTF and UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), highlights new trends and data related to the teaching profession and how these insights can support continuous professional development.
The TTF further contributed to knowledge generation through its participation in the APPRENDRE international seminar in Dakar in October 2025, where the Secretariat shared key highlights from a forthcoming paper on Teacher Management Information Systems (TMIS) in sub-Saharan Africa, underscoring the role of reliable teacher data in supporting effective planning and evidence-based policymaking.
Inclusive education was a major theme in the work of the TTF this year, playing a part in multiple events, such as the Global Disability Summit and International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The advocacy campaign Teachers without limits: Voices we must hear, leaders we must follow, led by the TTF’s Thematic Group on Inclusion and Equity in Teacher Policies and Practices, exemplified member-led collaboration by amplifying the leadership and lived experiences of teachers with disabilities through blogs, interviews and social media.
In parallel, the TTF continued its engagement in youth-led advocacy around the Santiago Consensus, ensuring sustained attention to its core messages on inclusive and equitable education.
The Teacher Policy Development Guide (TPDG) continued to support evidence-informed teacher policies, helping ensure that every learner is taught by qualified, trained and well-supported teachers. Regional webinars included a policy learning webinar in the Asia-Pacific region, co-organized with INRULED, focused on rural teacher policies and lessons from implementation, as well as a regional webinar for Arab States – facilitated by RCQE – on the costing and financing of teacher policies, with insights feeding into the development of new TPDG modules.
With all the transformative work from 2025 paving the way, the year ahead will continue to foster inclusive, equitable, and quality opportunities for teachers through policy dialogues, reports, advocacy campaigns, and global events. Major milestones will include the release of the 2026-2029 Strategic Plan and the next edition of the Global Report on Teachers, as well as ongoing dissemination and contextualization of the Santiago Consensus.
The TTF offers a warm thank you to its members and partners for their collaboration and unwavering support towards realizing SDG 4. As we embark on a new year, it is critical to recognize the contributions of the network and commitment to bettering the teaching profession.
To learn more about the many accomplishments of the TTF and its members this past year, explore our blogs and subscribe to our newsletter.
To mark the International Day of Education 2026, UNESCO convened a global hybrid event at its Headquarters in Paris on 23 January 2026, under the theme The power of youth in co-creating education. The event brought together youth, students and education stakeholders to highlight the importance of meaningful youth participation in shaping education policy and practice at all levels, particularly in a context of rapid social and technological change.
The programme showcased national and global efforts to strengthen youth engagement in education decision-making, highlight youth-led initiatives – including in crisis-affected contexts – and introduced new tools developed to support meaningful participation in schools and beyond. It also reflected on emerging evidence on student and youth participation in education laws and policies, contributing to accountability for commitments made under the Education 2030 Agenda.
The event included the voices of teachers, including Ilan Enverga and Max Mikael Vinger, members of the SDG 4 Youth & Student Network, illustrating how educators can work alongside youth as facilitators, allies and partners in advancing inclusive, learner-centred education systems.
More information on the programme, speakers and a recording of the livestream is available on the International Day of Education 2026 event page.