Teachers are the backbone of education systems and the key to reaching learning goals, regardless of context and situation. Within the COVID-19 crisis, they are on the front line in ensuring that...
The Africa Teachers Webinar Series is a monthly learning event that aims to provide education stakeholders with insights, best practices, and innovative approaches to strengthening Teacher Professional Development (TPD) across the continent. It highlights effective models, policy recommendations, and practical strategies for making TPD more accessible, relevant, and sustainable.
The third set of the Africa Teachers Webinar Series will concentrate on education for health and well-being, with three sessions planned as follows:
Register now to follow the webinar series. Simultaneous interpretation is available in French and Portuguese.
Attend all three sessions in the third set to earn a digital certificate participation!
The series is co-sponsored by the Africa Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities, the African Union, the European Union’s Regional Teachers Initiative for Africa, and the Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (GPE KIX), a joint endeavour with the International Development Research Centre, Canada. The third set is also supported by the UNESCO flagship programme - Our rights, Our lives, Our future (03), UNESCO's section of Health and Education and Inter-Agency Group on School Health and Nutrition. The webinar series is organized by UNESCO’s International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa, which leads the GPE KIX Africa 19 Hub and is a partner in the European Union’s Regional Teachers Initiative for Africa.
From 9 to 11 October 2025, the British Council will host a three-day online international conference for English teachers around the world to celebrate World Teachers’ Day.
Under the theme “Global voices, future focus,” the conference will feature an inspiring programme of webinars and panel discussions by and for English teachers, highlighting innovation, inclusion and collaboration in English language teaching.
Across three days, participants will explore a wide range of topics — from continuous professional development and digital technology, to multilingualism, 21st-century skills, climate action, and effective strategies to strengthen learners’ speaking and vocabulary skills.
The event will include plenary sessions by leading educators including Cecilia Nobre and Christopher Graham, as well as live discussions with expert teachers from diverse contexts.
📅 Dates: 9–11 October 2025
🌐 Format: Online (free registration)
🎯 Theme: Global voices, future focus
👉 Explore the programme and registration details for each day.
As the number of teachers grows to meet rising demands globally, it is critical that conditions for teachers to collaborate improve in tandem. Collaboration is a vital aspect of the teaching profession and must be reinforced throughout the entire duration of one’s career, ranging from initial training to continuous professional development.
The new fact sheet published by the Teacher Task Force and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) for the 2025 World Teachers’ Day, utilizes new data to address opportunities for advancement in continuous professional development (CPD) and collaboration among teachers.
One of the greatest challenges associated with the teaching profession is the global shortage of teachers: approximately 44 million primary and secondary teachers are needed to ensure equitable education for all (Teacher Task Force & UNESCO, 2024). While we are still far away from reaching this goal, there has been positive expansion in the number of teachers worldwide.
The pre-primary level has experienced a nearly three-fold increase in the quantity of teachers, rising from 55 million in 2000 to 138 million in 2024. Secondary teachers have seen the greatest absolute growth from 25.4 million to 41.8 million, and the tertiary teacher workforce has more than doubled from 7 million to 14.5 million.
While it is encouraging to see such significant expansion, these numbers do not necessarily close the gap between teachers and students in classrooms. Student enrolment levels have often outpaced the growth of teachers, and the increase in the number of teachers does not necessarily equate to more teachers with comprehensive training and qualifications.
Although the global share of qualified teachers remains high (about 90%), the proportion of trained teachers has in fact declined slightly across all education levels. Qualified teachers refer to those who hold the highest level of academic qualification required for teaching, whereas trained teachers are those who have completed pedagogical preparation. Many regions need a renewed investment in teacher development to reverse the erosion in training and qualifications.
Based on data from the gender composition of the teaching workforce, two patterns have emerged. First, women tend to dominate the teaching force across the world. Second, the proportion of female teachers declines from pre-primary to secondary levels of education. At the primary level, about 8 or 9 out of every 10 qualified teachers are women (except in sub-Saharan Africa); however, this declines at the secondary level, where only 56% to 74% of teachers are women.
This has considerable implications for the role models that students encounter, the livelihoods of teachers in communities, and the perspectives that are included in classrooms, schools, curricula, and policies.
According to UIS data, 83% of primary school teachers reported receiving in-service training in the last 12 months, yet this high number does not necessarily reflect the type or quality of CPD. Only 14% of low-income countries require CPD, compared to 73% of high-income countries, highlighting a policy and capacity gap that may contribute to uneven access to opportunities for collaboration.
With CPD comes the need to further incorporate collaboration among teachers through initiatives such as team teaching, joint activities across classes, classroom observation with feedback, and collaborative professional learning. These opportunities are effective in engaging different forms of CPD yet are not as widely implemented.
Moving forward, it would be advantageous to establish new indicators on the teaching profession, extending beyond measuring teacher training and qualifications to include teachers’ status, career pathways, profession development, working conditions, and voice and participation in decision-making. Such measures will present a crucial path forward in supporting teacher collaboration on a global scale and making informed decisions about how to advance the work, impact, and experiences of teachers.
Teacher collaboration is the cornerstone of professional growth and quality education, yet a decrease in the number of trained and qualified teachers in combination with a lack of CPD among low- and lower-middle-income countries stifles opportunities for teachers to collectively work together.
Results from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that only 40% of secondary teachers receive induction and 22% are assigned mentors, both of which are essential aspects collaboration. Without proper induction or mentorship, teachers are less supported by their professional network, therefore potentially less motivated and committed to connect with other colleagues or even stay in the teaching profession. Collaborative practices enhance teachers’ working conditions overall, so it is essential that greater efforts are made to advocate for this.
Teachers are at the heart of the learning process and play a critical role in reducing learning inequalities. Yet, according to UNESCO, an estimated 44 million teachers are still required to reach the goal of universal primary and secondary education by 2030, including 15 million in sub-Saharan Africa alone. Despite this clear need, education authorities continue to struggle with attracting and keeping qualified teachers.
This debate will review techniques and policies currently piloted in different contexts to reduce the teacher gap, improve teacher professional development, and plan for more equitable teaching, building on recent research produced on the topic.
Register for the event here.
As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes classrooms around the world, a new position paper champions a simple but powerful principle: teachers, not technology, must lead this transformation. Launched by the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 (TTF) during UNESCO’s Digital Learning Week, the position paper highlights how AI can be a powerful ally for teachers when guided by sound policy, ethical principles, and well-designed professional learning.
The paper, Promoting and Protecting Teacher Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, emphasises that teachers must remain at the heart of education and of the emerging technologies influencing its future. It sets out how AI can ease administrative burdens, provide new teaching resources in multiple languages, support inclusive education, and help tailor learning to students’ needs if steered by teachers themselves. It calls for promoting human-centered pedagogies and safeguarding diversity by valuing teachers’ voices. Crucially, it also highlights the need to invest in teacher competencies so that educators can engage with AI critically and confidently to shape the future of learning.
“Teachers are the real drivers of innovation in education. AI can support them by creating more time for meaningful interactions with learners and by expanding access to quality resources. But it is teachers’ judgment, creativity, and empathy that nurture the relationships on which learning depends,” noted April Williamson, Director, Global Projects, at Digital Promise.
The paper also showcases emerging practices that demonstrate how AI can benefit teachers and students alike. For example, AI-powered tools are helping teachers to develop lesson plans aligned with national curricula, provide personalised feedback to learners, and translate materials into local languages to reduce barriers for second-language speakers. In contexts where there are severe teacher shortages, AI can also offer supplementary support to both teachers in the classroom and students while reinforcing, rather than replacing, the central role of qualified teachers.
The position paper reflects the shared perspectives of TTF members – policymakers, practitioners, and civil society – working across diverse global contexts. It was developed through a consultative process with the new TTF thematic group on Digital Education and AI, established in early 2025. The drafting process was led by Mutlu Cukurova, who prepared an initial version presented during a consultation webinar. Group members then enriched the draft through live discussions and written feedback, ensuring that the final paper carried the shared voice of the TTF. It emphasized the need both to mitigate risks to teachers and to strengthen their critical role in preparing the next generation to use AI safely and effectively.
The position paper was launched at Digital Learning Week at UNESCO in Paris and brought together educators and researchers from all regions to share concrete experiences. These ranged from frameworks that guide teachers in reviewing AI-generated feedback, to co-created tools that help students better define their learning needs, to large-scale programmes showing how generative AI can reduce teacher workload while strengthening inclusion in teaching practices.
“Placing teachers at the centre of AI development and adoption is not just the right thing to do, it is the only way to ensure that technology genuinely contributes to quality education. When teachers are empowered to lead on technology adoption, these tools become supports to building more equitable and resilient education systems,” affirmed Carlos Vargas, Head of the Teacher Task Force Secretariat and Chief of UNESCO's Section for Teacher Development.
By foregrounding teachers’ agency, the TTF position paper offers a practical roadmap for governments, institutions, and partners to support teachers as leaders of innovation in the age of AI. Its recommendations include governments developing comprehensive AI competency frameworks for teachers, supporting collaboration through professional networks, and aligning national policies to enable teacher agency in the digital age.
As AI continues to evolve, this new position paper makes clear that the future of education will be shaped not by technology alone, but by how effectively teachers are enabled to harness its potential. The message from Digital Learning Week is resounding: investing in teachers is the most effective way to ensure that AI contributes to quality, inclusive, and sustainable education for all.
Click here to read the position paper.
Image credit: UNESCO/Taek OH