The International partners of the Norwegian Teacher Initiative (NTI), UNESCO conveys solidarity message to all stakeholders to their regional consultative meetings on the draft Comprehensive National Teacher Policy and Teacher Deployment and Transfer Strategy.
These events are taking place at the time when many teachers are still at home, many teachers from private schools in particular have lost their livelihoods as a results the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated school closures.
This pandemic brings to the fore the importance of strengthening teacher policies around the world to enable national governments respond quickly and appropriately to the needs of teachers in crisis situations like this.
Read full statement below:
REGIONAL CONSULTATIONS ON THE DRAFT COMPREHENSIVE TEACHER POLICY AND TEACHER DEPLOYMENT AND TRANSFER STRATEGY
21-29 JULY 2020
Solidarity Message from the Norwegian Teacher Initiative Partners
On behalf of the international partners of the Norwegian Teacher Initiative (NTI), UNESCO conveys this solidarity message to all stakeholders to the regional consultative meetings on the draft Comprehensive National Teacher Policy and Teacher Deployment and Transfer Strategy.
These events are taking place at the time when many teachers are still at home, many teachers from private schools in particular have lost their livelihoods as a results the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated school closures.
This pandemic brings to the fore the importance of strengthening teacher policies around the world to enable national governments respond quickly and appropriately to the needs of teachers in crisis situations like this.
The United Nations through UNESCO, has been monitoring education responses to COVID-19 globally, collecting and analysing information, tracking the evolution, scale and impact of and policy responses to school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and is using this information to facilitate policy dialogue and experience-sharing with its Member States including Ghana.
The centrality of the teacher in any education enterprise is undisputable, as the teacher is the pivot around which all teaching and learning revolve.
Teachers are one of the most influential and powerful forces for equity, access and quality in education and key to sustainable global development.
However, their training, recruitment, retention, status and working conditions remain worrying.
To address these issues, it is important that national governments articulate and implement clear policies to foster a motivated, valued and effective teaching force. It is against this backdrop that we are supporting this meeting, as it is giant step by the Government of Ghana towards addressing the challenges facing the teaching profession in the country.
Furthermore, the critical role of teachers in ensuring inclusive quality and equitable education and lifelong learning for all (SDG 4) cannot be overemphasized.
It is in this light that the Incheon Declaration, specifically calls for Member States to “ensure that teachers and educators are empowered, adequately recruited, well-trained, professionally qualified, motivated and supported within well-resourced, efficient and effectively governed systems”.
The Sustainable Development Goal 4 has reinforced this focus through the Education 2030 Framework for Action, which has a target calling for a substantial increase in qualified teachers through the betterment of their training, recruitment, retention, status, working conditions and motivation (target 4.c) expects all countries to increase significantly the supply of qualified teachers by 2030.
To achieve this target, global efforts are required to enhance international cooperation and coordination to increase the supply, professional development, and performance of qualified teachers.
It is in this light that the Norwegian Teacher Initiative (NTI) was designed to support selected countries (including Ghana) to strengthen their teacher policies.
The Norwegian Government through the Norwegian Agency Development Cooperation (Norad) funds the NTI under the coordination of UNESCO, the United Nation’s lead agency for the Education 2030 Agenda.
The multi-partner initiative brings together key education players namely, Education International, the Global Partnership for Education, the International Labour Organization, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Bank, which have considerable experience in implementing teacher related activities:
The 1966 ILO/UNESCO recommendations concerning the status of teachers constitute a robust guideline document for the development of teacher education policies.
We urge all stakeholders to familiarize themselves with these recommendations and refer to them in addressing the qualitative dimensions of teacher issues affecting national educational development endeavours.
However, developing national teacher policies should not be the ultimate goal. Making sure that they are implemented is the major challenge.
We congratulate the leadership of Ghana Teacher Task Force (GTTF), National Teaching Council (NTC) and the National Inspectorate Board (NIB) for untiring efforts that have resulted in the development of these two policy documents.
The UN and its partners remain mobilized to support the Government of Ghana to design and implement policies that attract the quality personnel to the teaching profession to improve upon quality of education to ensure that no learner is left behind.
We wish to congratulate and thank all Ghanaian teachers for their dedication and we wish to express to them our solidarity.
MEDASSE
Source: EducationGhana.net
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