Today marks World Teachers’ Day 2011. Held annually, on October 5th since 1994, the day celebrates teachers worldwide and, this year, the focus is gender inequality. In a powerful joint statement, the promoting organisations have warned that inequality remains a serious issue and that “gender inequities within the teaching profession must be addressed.”

According to its founder, UNESCO, the aim of the World Teachers’ Day is to “mobilise support for teachers and to ensure that the needs of future generations will continue to be met by teachers.” It is partnered by Education International, an organisation representing nearly 30 million teachers in over 170 countries.

The theme for this year's World Teachers' Day is Teachers for gender equality, and, the organisers claim, despite the teaching profession being made up largely of women, working conditions have “deteriorated”.

The promoting organisations have highlighted the critical importance of addressing inequality within the profession:

“We know, for example, that in many regions a low proportion of female teachers will mean fewer girls at school and consequently even fewer women teachers in the future.

“Yet educating girls and women have cascading benefits for human development: fewer deaths in childbirth; more healthy babies; more children in school; better protection for children and women from HIV and AIDS, trafficking and sexual exploitation; and the economic and political empowerment of women.

“Women make up the majority of the teaching profession at the primary level, 62% globally but as high a proportion as 99% in some countries. Yet as the profession has become increasingly feminized, conditions of service, pay and status have deteriorated.

“If teachers are to be good role models for gender equality for boys and girls in all areas and at all levels of schooling, inequities within the teaching profession must be addressed.

“We must promote equal opportunities for women to be school leaders, institutional managers and decision-makers within ministries of education, for more women to become science, mathematics and technology teachers, and for more men to be recruited as early childhood and primary school educators.”

The British Council states that since 2000, the international community has “made solid progress towards ‘Education For All’” and that international primary school enrolment rates have “increased dramatically”. However, UNESCO estimates that 18 million more teachers are needed worldwide if the goal of universal primary education is to be achieved by 2015.

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