Together we are pushing for action on the urgent priority of guaranteeing that every child has a teacher. Without a critical investment in their teaching workforces, governments cannot not guarantee the right to a quality education for all children.

5.4 million teachers needed

The latest estimates suggest a 5.4 million teacher gap, concentrated across 112 countries.

By 2015, two million new posts need to be filled in order to cater for the expansion in enrolment, and a further 3.4 million posts must be filled to cover those who are retiring or leaving the profession.

I invite you to click through this map to find out how many children are being taught by each teacher.

In many countries, one teacher supervises an average of 40 children or more on a daily basis. In the case of the Central African Republic it is an average of 84.3 children per teacher.

Going beyond basic standards

Lower class sizes do not automatically lead to better quality education, but who can seriously think that when you have this many children in a room with one teacher, their learning is not being compromised?

The amazing thing about these statistics is that they are merely the number needed to achieve access goals.

How many trained teachers, with what level of training, are needed to ensure that 250 million primary school-aged children, who are at present not able to master even basic reading or writing, actually learn while in school and achieve good learning outcomes?

Tackling the ‘hidden exclusion’

As we outline in our report, ‘Ending the Hidden Exclusion: learning and equity in education post-2015’, the gap in learning outcomes is worryingly large, and widening in some cases, resulting in many children not gaining the basic skills they need in order to go on and access a wider education.

Tackling what we have termed ‘the hidden exclusion’ – that is, children who are in school but not learning the basics – is essential to fulfilling the universal right to education.

Teachers are critical to addressing this. They are the most important resource to improve the learning which takes place in school.

Any changes in the way teachers are treated or prioritised in national education policies must reflect the fact that they require continuous training to help them develop their teaching skills.

Ensuring teacher quality

Of 100 countries with data on primary education, in 33 less than 75% of teachers were trained to the national standard. There is also huge disparity in the minimum requirements for primary school teachers.

It is crucial to ensure teachers become part of a professional workforce, with access to adequate quality training prior to entering the teaching profession, through pre-service training, and also during their whole career.

As the Global Monitoring Report team highlights this week, efforts need to be particularly targeted at teachers in the early grades, a vital time.

Additionally, it is crucial to provide greater recognition and professionalisation of early childhood education specialists, who may well have the highest impact on any child’s learning trajectory.

Every child needs a teacher

Finally, while narrowing the teacher gap, the huge task at hand will be to incentivise new and existing teachers to take up and remain in positions in poor, rural and fragile contexts.

Only then will governments successfully guaranteeing that every child has a teacher, and that every child is able to fulfil their right to education.

This represents a global outcry to bring an end to behaviours that affect one in three girls and women on a daily basis.

One billion voices must lead to action

Abusive and discriminatory behaviours, low literacy levels and a myriad obstacles placed on girls and women from the early years, all serve as barriers for empowerment. In education, the scale of the challenge remaining is considerable.

Around the world, more women than men are illiterate. Many countries display extreme gender disparity, with fewer than seven literate women for every ten literate men.

Worryingly, 32.1 million primary-age girls are out of school – representing more than half of the out-of-school population – and 34.2 million adolescent girls are out of secondary school. If the same number of girls were in primary schools as boys, an additional 3.6 million children would be in school, enjoying their right to education.

Today, the UK government launched the Girls Education Challenge Fund – an initiative to ensure over 670,000 girls are able to rise to their potential in 22 countries.

Urgent action needed

In Mozambique, over half the population is extremely poor and levels of discrimination and abuse against women are very high. Girls’ access to school serves as a key example: they represent 66% of primary-aged children who are out of school. Girls represent higher drop-out rates, especially in rural areas where poverty is more acute. One in three girls don’t reach grade five (age 10/11), and only one in four get into secondary school.

In partnership with the Mozambique government and local organisations, Save the Children has launched a three-year project to boost efforts to ensure more girls and young women are given equal opportunities to go to school, learn, complete a full cycle of primary education, and transition into secondary.

The project is financed through the Girls Education Challenge Fund,which represents a crucial investment in Mozambique’s choice to build a stronger future for girls and young women.

It will address five key components, aiming to tackle the multiple barriers affecting girls’ education.

The five components

It will first and foremost secure access for those who haven’t gone to school. Education kits will be given to girls who are out of school; bursaries given to girls in secondary schools; and cultural misperceptions and awareness on the importance of girls’ right to education will be addressed through community-led radio and awareness events.

Crucially, it will guarantee safety in schools. Training in schools will make the environment safer and girls will be get the opportunity to participate more fully at school, forming clubs to support each other and make sure their voices are heard. Increasing safety will ensure girls can study without the fear of violence and abuse, and girls themselves will influence these changes.

To ensure girls succeed throughout their education, it will strengthen retention and learning outcomes. Catch-up classes will be provided in areas with high drop-out rates, girls will access homework clubs, and a special emphasis will be placed on building literacy environments at school and in communities. Additionally, we’ll boost literacy through a focus on learning to read and reading to learn, guaranteeing girls achieve good learning outcomes.

Given the crucial role played by the teaching profession, the project will focus on training and strengthening the capacity of head teachers, district education staff, school inspectors and teacher trainers on gender equality in education and teaching; as well as on teaching to read and learn to strengthen children’s learning outcomes.

Finally, to guarantee that many more girls and young women will benefit from this initiative, it will focus on building policy and national level change, particularly by providing evidence on how to tackle and remove the systemic barriers affecting girls’ education. This will in turn assist the government to build on this initiative and make national changes that guarantee all girls have equal opportunities to succeed.

Long-term investment

We know that girls’ education, including access and learning, is one of the best long-term investments we can make to ensure girls build their skills and they feel empowered to achieve their potential.

Today, as one billion people dance, shout and rise to call for an end to discrimination against women, an education-focused movement will ensure girls and young women rise and achieve their full potential in Mozambique.

It’s a cliché, but true that we all remember our best teachers.  They inspire, change lives and are the bedrock of any good school.  Any comparison between school systems which perform well for their children and those systems which struggle, points to the central importance of who stands in front of pupils day-in-day-out.

Earlier this week, a report from the education company Pearsons, with a very useful website, comes to just this conclusion.

“Good teachers,” the paper notes, “are essential to high quality education.”

A common feature of some of the best performing school systems in the world – Finland and South Korea come out well in Pearson’s global league table of school systems – is their ability to recruit excellent teachers, to inspire their workforce and then value and recognise their successes.

Talented teachers

Exactly how each nation gets the most talented people into the teaching profession and then ensures that they successfully improve their pupils’ learning and life chances will differ from country to country, but few doubt just how central the issue is.

This is why the choice of subject for UNESCO’s 2013 Global Monitoring Report (GMR) –  Teaching and Learning for Development – is so welcome.

A consultation on the report has just been launched. No issue could be more critical in upping school quality and reversing the abysmal lack of learning which threatens to hold so many people and developing nations back.

What is more, few issues are more important in continuing to make progress on access; it seems highly likely that the poor quality of too many schools today (in large part the result of poorly trained and under-motivated teachers) is contributing to the stalled progress on moving towards achieving universal primary education.

Achieving education for all

Next years’ GMR offers the education policy community a space and platform to debate how best to improve teacher quality. Save the Children will bring lessons from our work around the world to bear on the debate. At the same time the Global Campaign for Education has chosen 2013 to focus on teaching.

Both in the UK and internationally, the coalition will be highlighting the scale of the ‘teacher gap’. The latest stats show that 1.7 million additional teachers will need to be recruited globally between now and 2015 if we are to achieve education for all.

And that’s before you get to the altogether more difficult challenge of ensuring that all these teachers are present in schools, motivated, rewarded and recognised.

In the period ahead, rightly, there looks set to be considerable debate about exactly how to measure learning outcomes but let’s not forget that just as important, and arguably more difficult, will be taking the measures that allow school systems to take a quality leap and improve learning – teaching will be front and centre in this debate.

However, it’s the peak season for natural disasters in many other countries too; Southern and South-East Asian countries have been responding to natural disasters on an almost monthly basis.

Whenever disasters strike, all children, no matter where, are vulnerable. But there’s an obvious inequality in a child’s chances of going back to school.

In the US, some children may miss a few days of school. In many other countries, a few days out of school may end up meaning a few months or even a year.

As a recent Brookings Institution blog has said very clearly, we’ll never ensure that all children are able to go to school and learn, without ensuring that education is given proper attention in the wake of natural emergencies.

Education is hit hard

Water is definitely the core theme of the current disasters, but the opposite – drought – is what continues to affect many countries in west and east Africa (with the exception of parts of Mali and Niger, which are now affected by floods).

When disasters strike, education can be hit hard in some of the poorest countries in the world.

This may range from handful of schools that are destroyed in a particularly badly hit area. It may affect many schools forced to close as a preventive measure and, in some cases, it may apply to many schools being used as shelter.

Recovering these schools will take longer – and the longer we wait, the more children are unlikely to return to school.

Where’s the funding?

Despite the hugely detrimental impact of natural disasters on children’s schooling and their chances to learn, the international community still has its head in the sand.

It still drags its heels when it comes to ensuring that humanitarian aid is used to prevent children from dropping out – with all the long-term consequences that this has for themselves and their communities.

This month we have looked at some of the humanitarian Consolidated Appeals Processes (CAP, led by the UN) for the same countries.

The CAPs provide a snapshot of which sectors are better funded – and donor and humanitarian priorities.

Almost 11 months later, education has only received 7% of its overall needs in Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – that’s 1.2 million USD out of the 17.8 million needed – this will only begin to cover the immediate needs to get education programmes up and running.

Schools should be open

Governments and donors must make a commitment to elevate education in emergencies so that it receives equal status in their humanitarian policies.

This is a first step to take in order to ensure they release essential funding that will ensure education interventions are put in place.

As the US recovers from the impact of Hurricane Sandy, children’s education will have only been interrupted for a few days.

We must make sure that children everywhere are entitled to exactly the same feeling of knowing they can go back to school once the tempest has passed.

The launch of Education First is a key moment for everyone working on education. But it’s not just about agencies dedicated to education, it’s about the rest of the global community, states and other sectors – human rights, development and humanitarian, and business.

Education First aims to secure three key things:

1. Equal access for all children, particularly the most marginalised children and those in emergencies. It’s crucial that the initiative lives up to this commitment because without securing access to these children, we’ll always fall short of fulfilling the right to education for all and meeting key access milestones.
2. Quality learning for all children. Given that we face a global learning crisis of significant proportions, it must focus on building quality learning environments that ensure children’s right to learn and learning outcomes – children need to learn and get something out of their education.
3. Global citizenship, outlining that the right to education must build a common understanding across cultures; that education must fulfil its role as a platform for knowledge and awareness raising, building on values of peace, respect and mutual understanding.

Caution? Excitement?

Amid the excitement on Wednesday, many in the room had a sense of caution. Is this initiative really going to drive the energy we urgently need to secure every child their right to education?

Are we going to secure key governmental and UN commitments to truly move this forward together? Are we going to see new funding for education?

While we may be right in expressing caution, we also have to celebrate that education has finally been placed on the global agenda – this time round, not just as an education-specific agenda , ie, the Education for All (EFA) goals, but as a global agenda driven by the UN, with all stakeholders included.

We were missing this; we were banging drums about the international neglect of education. Now, we’ve got it.

With three years to go until the Millennium Development Goals and EFA agenda, and the current learning crisis, there’s plenty to be done in the run-up to 2015.

From aspirations to action

Education First should:

• Guarantee an implementation framework is in place, with key actors driving the agenda, including through an actual secretariat responsible for overseeing the initiative. We cannot leave the initiative as just a guiding framework; all those responsible for guaranteeing children an education need to act on the commitments and pledges made on Wednesday (and more, we hope).
• Ensure civil society is aware of and feels part of Education First. Ultimately, it’s civil society organisations that will continue to act as watchdogs of multiple global and national commitments. They must be fully aware of what Education First will mean to them and their countries, working with governments to implement the key goals. Education First must become a platform for bringing multiple voices to the table.
• Expect greater financial commitments from all stakeholders – the business sector has pledged over US$1.3 billion. It’s crucial this is followed with clear state commitments to allocate the right amount for national education budgets. Equally, donor countries must keep existing commitments for bilateral education aid and contributions to the Global Partnership on Education.
• Secure key state buy-in to guarantee education goals in the post-2015 framework are fully in line with what children actually need: to learn and enjoy an education that puts them on the right path.

This is particularly crucial, given the launch of Education First, the UN Secretary General’s new five-year initiative on education.

The call to action includes recommendations and milestones on what needs to happen to ensure education is guaranteed to all children in conflict areas and in the midst of emergencies.

It sets out three key points:

• Increase levels of humanitarian aid to education and improve its delivery mechanisms
• Keep education safe from attacks
• Integrate emergency prevention, preparedness, response and recovery in education sector plans and budgets

It was a very important meeting to ensure that all those who have a key role to play know what they should be doing.

We all outlined what the international community – encompassing education, humanitarian and development actors – need to put in place to move forward.

The plight of children today

The outcomes and recommendations made even more sense given the current plight of children worldwide.

We’re only just beginning to hear what’s happening to children in Syria; children in the Philippines cannot access school because their schools are being used for shelter; and millions of children in South Sudan cannot go to school because the systems are not in place yet.

In all these situations, everyone understands and should acknowledge that education becomes a top priority. No one can dispute the role of education in these, and all, emergencies.

Key areas for follow-up

A few interventions were particularly striking for me:

• Baroness Valerie Amos, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, who spoke about the importance of integrating education in humanitarian responses and ensuring there are more cross-sector interventions and integrated approaches are more commonly used. This is one of our key asks from our latest report, A creeping crisis: the neglect of education in slow-onset emergencies.
• Education International’s Teopista Birungi Mayanja reminded everyone of the importance of teachers – ultimately the frontliners of any education system. In the interest of working towards guaranteeing every child an education, we must guarantee teachers are adequately trained and supported to deliver on their key role.
• Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser of Qatar reaffirmed her commitments towards ending the practice of attacks on education and ensuring legal systems criminalise attacks and hold perpetrators to account.

We must do everything we can

The most striking, and the one that impacted me the most, was Liberia’s Minister of Education. I have quoted her below:

“Liberia is a country that has lived through terrible conflict… young people [could] either follow the path to war or choose another path. There was a lack of attention to teaching children how to survive. The focus was on other things, food and shelter.

“We now have the challenge of undoing this neglect. This cannot be allowed to happen again. It is essential that governments facing conflict and the international community wake up to the critical role that education has to play and must play in education in emergencies. I cannot believe that people cannot understand how important this is. And it needs many resources, both human and capital…”

She ended her statement by saying what we’ve all been trying to say:

“Please please, can we invest more in education in times of conflict? Not doing so is UNACCEPTABLE. It’s short-sighted and immoral. We must all do everything we can now and SOON.”

Education cannot wait. The call to action outlines exactly what needs to happen.

Today we’re launching another report reinforcing that call. A creeping crisis: the neglect of education in slow-onset emergencies focuses on what’s happening to children and their education across the Sahel and east Africa.

It shows that the knock-on effects of drought and malnutrition permeate all aspects of children’s lives, with a huge impact on education and long-term development prospects.

Crucially, the millions of children currently affected by malnutrition across drought-affected regions are at high risk for many reasons; but recent evidence shows that malnutrition has an irreversible impact on brain development, affecting children’s ability to learn.

This means that what does or does not happen will affect many children now and throughout their lives.

Forced to drop out

We estimate that 8.5 million children are missing out on primary school across both regions. Many children have been forced to drop out of school in slow onset emergencies – either to migrate or to support their families by doing household work or income-generating activities.

Even before the crises, generations of children have been missing out on their right to education, resulting in a huge impact on their own prospects and those of their communities.

Our new report has four key messages:

1. Education must be a key sector in ongoing emergencies: providing children with learning opportunities has often been neglected, as evidenced by the high numbers of illiterate youth in both regions.

It’s crucial to address education in the context of malnutrition crises, protracted and recurring drought, and to ensure that children are learning about disaster risk reduction.

2. Integrated approaches – bringing all sectors together to work on children holistically– are needed: the humanitarian community must place an emphasis on what children need in order to reduce the vulnerabilities caused by the crises and regain normality in their lives.

Education is a key platform to ensure children benefit from all basic services, with schools at the centre.

3. Education builds and supports resilience: coping strategies and valuable lessons on environmental education and disaster preparedness can go a long way in ensuring children are better able to cope and support innovative solutions for their families and communities in future crises.

As an assessment from Ethiopia’s Dollo Ado camp puts it: ”Education is one of the only ways they [children] can step outside the camp boundaries, if only in their minds, and they understand that.

“It is the only way children will acquire the skills needed to navigate the unknown path ahead or return one day to their homeland with the skills necessary to rebuild what was destroyed or lost.”

4. Education funding must be secured to enable education’s multiple benefits: education remains the most underfunded sector in all country UN-led Consolidated Appeals Processes (CAPs).

If the Education Cluster and implementing agencies lack funding, less children will be reached in time to prevent higher drop-outs in the run-up to back to school periods starting now until October.

To sum up…

Children’s education must be a top priority for any humanitarian decision maker and governments aiming to bring an end to recurring emergencies and build resilience among the affected populations.

Neglecting children’s right to education at this stage will only exacerbate the impact of the recurrent droughts, affecting the youngest populations and their prospects for development post-drought.

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These have been aimed at raising parental awareness of the importance of the early years in shaping children’s futures, and encouraging all parents to send their children to ECCD centres.

They have also been an opportunity for communities to find out Rwanda’s plans for the youngest children and a key way to raise people’s awareness of local authorities.

In a decentralised structure such as Rwanda’s, seeking commitments from the district and sector authorities is crucial to implementing Rwanda’s national ECCD policy, adopted in 2011.

Combined with what we heard high-level representatives, including Rwanda’s first lady, commit to in the context of the expert workshop in Kigali last week, we’ve got all stakeholders covered.

Key messages from the Global Action Week

• From children: Children are Rwanda’s future – they are Rwanda’s arms as a local song goes – and they must therefore be given the best start in life.
• From parent committees: Families and communities must make sure all children attend ECCD centres, but parents should also be provided with all the key information they need to ensure they support their children by taking them to the local health centre when they need medical care, not punishing them at home, and taking more time to play with them in the early years.
• From mayors and vice-mayors: Local authorities will ensure they include ECCD provision in the next review of their performance plans – this is the first step to take to ensure policies are matched with budget and monitoring at the local level.
• From the Ministry of Education: The early years will be a key component of Rwanda’s forthcoming second Poverty Reduction Strategy – Rwanda is close to achieving universal primary education and is increasing efforts in secondary education (matched with its intention to become a middle-income country by 2020).
• From other ministries involved: The ECCD policy is a crucial policy to implement to ensure all children are provided with the best opportunities from the very early years, enabling them to develop fully and ensure they are ready to learn. All relevant ministries will join forces by establishing a high-level task force that will monitor implementation and align priorities in early years .

Investing in Rwanda’s future

As outlined in our latest advocacy brief, investing in children will yield positive results for Rwanda, and all Rwandans, in the short-, medium- and long-term.

This is a message that parents, communities and authorities have supported throughout this Global Action Week.

Rwanda has set the foundations to implement its ECCD policy successfully and holistically.

It has so far taken the essential steps, but the government as a whole, and all ministries involved, will need to ensure parents, communities and local authorities are not stopped because of a lack of resources.

This is a commitment for all: ministries, local authorities, parents, communities and Rwanda’s children (for we have encouraged them to raise their voices too!).

For more information on Rwanda’s plans, visit the Ministry of Education’s ECD website.

A child’s first days, months and years – from prenatal until the age of eight – are crucial.

A child from a pre-school in Rubavo, Rwanda participating in the Rwandan Global Action Week.

Focusing on those years is vital to guarantee that a child survives beyond the age of five and develops fully. Ultimately, this period will shape the rest of their childhood, adolescence and adult life.

Worldwide, more than 200 million children under five don’t reach their full developmental potential due to the absence of early childhood care programmes and a lack of nutritious food.

Those who do reach primary school often lack the basic skills to develop or learn in a classroom setting. This leads to high numbers dropping out, never reaching even first or second grade.

Tackling inequality holistically

ECCD combines interventions that respond holistically to children’s needs, rather than compartmentalising children into sectors.

It’s one of the best investments governments can make to secure an equal start for all children, and has the biggest effect on the poorest and most marginalised children.

“A child cannot be divided into sectors: working together is the only way,” said Theoneste Niyonzima, the Early Childhood Development expert in Rwanda’s Ministry of Education, who has been instrumental in developing the country’s holistic ECCD policy – adopted in 2011.

He addressed this comment to senior officials in Rwanda’s government, as well as the First Lady of the Republic of Rwanda, at a joint UNICEF, Save the Children and Imbuto Foundation seminar last week.

Often seen to be strictly an education intervention, there are some myths to dispel here:

• ECCD combines key child survival and education interventions.
• If implemented properly, ECCD brings together Ministries of Health, Food and Agriculture, Education, Gender and Child Welfare and in some cases, Justice.
• It takes an integrated approach, taking into account pregnancy, nutrition, health and developmental milestones.

Why ECCD must be implemented jointly:

• Increasing pre-school enrolment rates to 25% in every low-income and middle-income country could yield an estimated US$10.6 billion through higher educational achievement. A 50% increase could generate US$33.7 billion.
• Improvements in educational efficiency alone are calculated to pay back close to 85% of the costs of ECCD interventions.
• Malnourished children will struggle to reach their potential, physically and mentally.

Firmer commitments needed

It may only be a week of action led by civil society, but many governments need to take ECCD seriously and this week should remind them of the importance of guaranteeing children’s rights in the early years.

They have to move from recognition to action, which means policies and budgets need to be in place to provide children with the best foundations.

ECCD is an investment governments cannot miss.

For more information take a look at our most recent report Laying the Foundations: Early Childhood Care and Development

I’ve written today’s blog thinking about women who are teachers because they’ve chosen to dedicate their lives to a profession that unlocks young people’s potential and opens up a world of opportunities.

I especially dedicate it to female teachers who risk their lives on a daily basis to secure the right to education of children in conflict-affected areas, where their roles as educators of new generations put them at serious risk of being attacked, sexually abused and often killed.

Catalysts for change

Teachers, in general, play a key role in building the minds of new generations; they also play a key role in removing barriers for the children they teach.

In countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan or Liberia –countries with very low gender parity—female teachers can be the enablers of girls’ right to education. The presence of female teachers can increase girls’ opportunities to go to school by removing gender-focused barriers that prevent girls’ access and affect their retention.

Leaders in their own sector?

The teaching profession is overwhelmingly female but for many female teachers, however, it hasn’t been an easy ride: getting through primary, secondary and higher education and into a teaching institute, whilst perhaps having to face discrimination along the way.

However, women are under-represented in key leadership positions (whether it is in education ministries, teacher’s unions, head teacher roles, etc), and neither do female teachers get the salaries and compensation they should be entitled to.

Additionally, in many countries many women lose out on obtaining full official status, as a result of having lower or alternative qualifications. This is particularly the case in countries going through significant transition –particularly post-conflict situations.

Missing out

In South Sudan, for example, many women participated in the Women into Teaching programme which aimed to increase the number of female teachers by focusing on women with a secondary education.

But they  missed out on becoming part of the government’s payroll system in 2008, because they had lower qualifications that did not match the new requirements. 

Such a policy had a detrimental impact onthe already low levels of female teacher and the reconstruction of a teacher worforce, and indirectly, had a significant knock-on effect on the number of girls enrolling in school.

Investment needed

There may be many women in teaching, but in many countries very few of them have access to continuous training or support. This requires an increase in national education budgets that reflects the aspirations and development needs of its teachers.

Similarly, despite an increase in global and donor interest in closing the gender gap in education, few donors are directing their funding towards building the proportion of female teachers in countries where they are needed the most.

Such a smart investment would not only increase girls’ opportunities but would empower many women to get into a profession they choose.

Given the huge impact female teachers have on children and society as a whole, can governments really afford not to pay more attention to them?