UNESCO says there is a shortage of teachers around the world

Recently, UNESCO released a report stating that there is a huge shortage of teachers in almost all schools in the world. If this trend continues, then by 2030 it will already be a serious educational crisis.

Despite the fact that the authorities annually increase teachers' salaries and do everything to ensure that their work is not physically and emotionally difficult, teachers do not want to work in schools. According to preliminary estimates, by 2030 there will be a shortage of more than 40 million teachers! In 2022, 9% of teachers left schools, which is twice as many as in 2014. It is noted that most teachers leave after five years of work. The crisis is especially felt by African countries, where the percentage of teacher shortages is high, and by 2030 there will be a shortage of about 15 million teachers in schools.

Of course, this leads to serious problems in the field of education in all countries: teachers have to teach lessons for several classes at once, take on an additional workload, which leads to severe stress and burnout. This is also uncomfortable for students who cannot receive proper attention from the teacher, because the teacher is not able to devote a minute of free time and resolve the issue with the student on an individual basis.

The UNESCO report contains recommendations that will help solve the current situation.

1. The first thing to do is to increase teachers' salaries: because the emotional and physical load is often not commensurate with earnings. Moreover, many teachers have to take part-time jobs because the teacher's salary is not enough for all expenses! Experts from the United States and Brazil especially complain about this.
2. It is also important to ask teachers' opinions not only on the settlement of internal issues, but also when adopting some laws in the field of education that relate to their professional activities. Alas, often the decisions of the Ministries of Education of different countries complicate the work of teachers.
3. Most schools now have men in leadership positions and women as teachers. If the percentage of female principals and head teachers becomes higher, then this will motivate them to go to work in educational institutions.

In order to avoid a "pedagogical crisis", serious investments will be required, which will be aimed not only at increasing teachers' salaries, but also at developing programs to facilitate their work.