Realising inclusive and equitable education for all will not be possible without teachers who are supported, empowered and provided adequate training. This is why, throughout 2019, the Teacher Task Force (TTF) continued to work in advancing teacher and teaching issues, as well as supporting countries to develop robust teacher policies. Here are some of the highlights of what we achieved in 2019.

Calling for greater investment in the teaching profession

The Teacher Task Force contributed to key fora and events during the year to make the case for teachers at the global level.
The Head of the TTF Secretariat called for greater investment in teachers in an op-ed featured in the 2019 Commonwealth Education Report. This call was reiterated through the TTF support to the #CommitToEducation campaign launched during the High-Level Political Forum in July 2019. We also made the case to invest in young teachers during World Teachers Day on 5 October.

Putting the teaching profession at the centre of education

TTF Members also regularly collaborated throughout the year to ensure teachers featured high on the education agenda, notably through the TTF’s thematic working groups.

During the 2019 Mobile Learning Week, the TTF thematic group on ICT and distance education held a debate on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on teacher education and teaching practices. This debate brought together a variety of education stakeholders and helped shape the conversation, with a clear takeaway that AI cannot replace a teachers’ presence in the learning environment.

The Thematic Group on inclusion and equity in teacher policies and practices also contributed to discussions on inclusive and equitable education. The TTF organised a panel highlighting the importance of teachers in inclusive and equitable school settings during the European Development Days held in Brussels in June. Panellists highlighted the critical influence teachers have in creating safe and inclusive learning environments.

In December 2019, members of the TTF Thematic Group on early childhood education and care convened a conference mobilizing over 200 participants, including from 18 African countries, that put teacher issues front and centre in ECE discussions. The conference resulted in the Casablanca Declaration and Call for Action, which recognised that ensuring quality training and professionalization for ECE teachers and educators, as well as decent working conditions, is a priority for achieving SDG target 4.2.

The TTF also convened its 12th annual Policy Dialogue Forum (PDF) in December in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) under the theme “The Futures of Teaching”. The PDF was attended by some 250 international and 80 national participants, which included seven Ministers of Education from different regions, and has received positive feedback. One of the country delegates attending the PDF stated that “the Forum workshop came at the right time, (…) it allowed me to identify the various gaps that exist in the management of our teachers and even in the development of our teaching policy and to propose to the various officials at the Ministry level the necessary adjustments”. The key conclusions and recommendations of the Forum were summarised in the Dubai Declaration on the Futures of Teaching.

Improving regional engagement

The Teacher Task Force also strengthened its work at regional level, through a series of member consultations throughout the year, with positive impacts, such as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) officially becoming a member of the Teacher Task Force.

The regional meetings highlighted the strength of the TTF in providing its members with a space where they could come together and collectively reflect on teacher issues from their respective points of view, taking into account particular national and regional contexts. Members were encouraged to continue cooperation and communication throughout the year, and this work will continue to be strengthened in 2020.

Looking ahead to 2020

Following a fruitful year, the Teacher Task Force will keep up its advocacy work at global and regional levels in 2020, ensuring that teacher and teaching issues remain high on the Education 2030 and SDG agendas throughout the new decade.

The TTF will also launch a new online Knowledge Platform in 2020. The goal of this web-based portal is to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, expertise and experiences on different dimensions of the teaching profession among TTF members and partners, and become a key resources for all those working on teachers and teacher policy development.

With the release of the online Teacher Policy Development Guide training courses, developed in collaboration with the Open University UK, the TTF Secretariat will also continue to work with its members to broker support for countries who are in the process of developing, implementing and monitoring national teacher policies.

The Teacher Task Force will continue to contribute to several initiatives at global and regional levels to advance the cause of the teaching profession in 2020.

A collaborative partnership between UNESCO, the International Task Force on Teachers for 2030 and The Open University has resulted in an online version of the Teacher Policy Guide being published and launched at the 12th Policy Dialogue Forum in Dubai on 10th December 2019.

Designed by Freda Wolfenden, Kris Stutchbury and Deborah Cooper of The Open University, this newly launched online guide proposes courses and interactive learning elements to help users who are developing teacher policies. For example, the online guide features an interactive glossary, which means that definitions for words used in the text are easy to search and access.

The online guide also includes some focussed activities that have been placed throughout chapters 2-5 of the guide to help policy-makers and education stakeholders apply the knowledge provided to their own context and help them frame their teacher policy as it develops. Users are also able to track their progress through the chapters and activities thanks to a dedicated user-account on the website.

The other interesting feature of the new online guide is the addition of short quizzes at the end of chapters 2-5. They are designed to assist learning and understanding the concepts encountered in the guide while working through the chapters.

The quizzes are not designed as a memory test and the questions have hints if the user does not get the answer right the first time. They can be attempted as many times as the user wishes and each attempt will draw upon a slightly different selection of questions from the question bank for that chapter.

Working through an online chapter and successfully passing the chapter quiz results in the user receiving an online digital badge for that chapter. Completing the whole guide and all the quizzes online results in a printable Statement of Participation, which includes all four badges.

The online guide chapters can also be downloaded to allow the users to work on them offline (so far in PDF and Word format). However, unlike the online modules, these are not tracked for progress and do not include the quiz questions.

The online version is currently available in English and can be found at the following link www.open.edu/openlearncreate/UNESCO-Teacher-Policy or accessed through the QR code below.

Online versions of the Spanish, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Chinese and Russian copies of the guide will be published in 2020 in the same online collection.

The International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 will be holding its 12th Policy Dialogue Forum from 8 – 11 December in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Organised in cooperation with the UAE Ministry of Education and the Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation for Distinguished Academic Performance, the Forum will be looking at the “Futures of Teaching”.

One of the Teacher Task Force’s main concern is the world’s ability to recruit and retain more than 69 million teachers needed in primary and secondary school, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. If we do not, we will not achieve inclusive equitable education for all by 2030.

However, with our rapidly changing world, getting teachers into classrooms is not the only issue anymore. We need to ensure they are ready to face new generations of learners and the challenges awaiting them.

Why did the Teacher Task Force choose this theme?

Climate change. Migration and displacement. The rise of intolerance. The digital revolution.

With all the changes the world is facing, the global education community decided to launch a new initiative, the "Futures of Education: Learning to Become”, to reimagine how education and knowledge can contribute to the global common good.

Teaching in the 21st century has become an incredibly challenging and complex profession. Teachers share the tremendous responsibility of preparing future generations to address these challenges. 

Teachers need help to meet this challenge and responsibility. They need to be prepared and supported to teach skills, knowledge, and values relevant to the changing world, including digital technologies and artificial intelligence, relevant interpersonal skills, new methods of learning, and socio-emotional development. 

What will be discussed?

The 12th Policy Dialogue Forum will focus on how the Futures of Education influences the future(s) of teaching. The discussions will be organised around thematic areas to shed light on various ways teaching would evolve in conjunction with the times.

With the emergence of new trends in learning, teachers, and most importantly teacher education and preparation, need to adapt to the disruption caused by the advancement of technology as a teaching and learning tool. Moreover, technology is not just changing the skills students need to develop, but also the way they approach and acquire knowledge as well as were they learn.

The addition of a digital component to the learning environment has sparked a growing recognition of the need to change teaching practices and transformed the educational. Indeed, the tradition of a teacher standing in front of a class imparting knowledge is being more and more challenged by the xxx of putting the learner at the centre and encouraging their greater autonomy in the learning process.

In a world where intolerance and inequalities are also rising, teachers need to teach principles and values such as tolerance. While the causes of education inequalities are linked to many factors, teachers and educators can still play a transformational role in the classroom. The global education community and national governments needs to look at the skills, dispositions and knowledge necessary for the diverse classrooms of tomorrow.

What will the Forum look like? 

Around 300 education stakeholders from around the world will gather in Dubai to reflect on and discuss their visions of teaching to respond to the new challenges facing teachers. 

The Forum will allow the collection and consolidation of insights on the futures of teaching, including the identification and framing of emerging trends, good practices, questions and challenges related to the learning-teaching process and their implications for teacher education and continuous professional development.

His Excellency Hussain Ibrahim Al Hammadi will host a Ministerial round table, bringing together ministers of education from all region, to share their innovative reforms they have initiated to improve teacher training, address inequalities and introduce technological and other innovations.

They will be joined by education experts, academics, researchers, school leaders, teachers and NGO/CSO representatives from around the world who will also share their perspectives on the future of teaching and shape recommendations to national governments on how to improve teacher education to better prepare teachers for the future.

Teachers are vital to developing students’ knowledge, attitude and skills to constructively and responsibly engage in society, uphold the principle of justice and help build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions.

UNESCO and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have partnered on a joint project titled "UNESCO/UNODC Initiative on Global Citizenship Education: Doing the Right Thing" aiming to improve the capacities of policymakers, educators, teacher trainers and curriculum developers to design and implement educational interventions addressing today’s challenges to peace, justice and the rule of law.

UNESCO and UNODC’s recent publication, Strengthening the rule of law through education: A guide for policymakers, offers concrete examples of how schools and teachers can increase trust and serve as models of just societies. For instance, when teachers establish fair classroom rules and enforce them uniformly, children and youth experience first-hand equal treatment, transparency and accountability, which are key elements of the rule of law. In addition, when teachers empower students to co-create classroom rules, young people recognize that they have an active role in shaping governance.

In contexts when ethical norms and values taught and modelled in schools are not prevalent outside of schools, it important that education programmes inspire learners’ motivation, and confidence to improve their situation. For example, teachers can facilitate the dialogue and exposure of young people with former actors of violence who recount their stories of transformation to develop positive role models.

In addition to this guide, UNESCO and UNODC are currently developing primary and secondary level teacher toolkits that include activities, lessons and resources to strengthen the rule of law, available October 2019. For more information, visit the project site at Global Citizenship Education for the Rule of Law: Doing the Right Thing.