Karachi Pakistan : The UNESCO proclaimed 5 October to be World Teachers’ Day in 1994, celebrating the great step made for teachers on 5 October 1966, when a special intergovernmental conference convened by UNESCO in Paris adopted the UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, in cooperation with the ILO.
International (EI) mount a campaign each year to help give the world better understanding of teachers and the role they play in the development of students and society. They partner with the private sector such as media organizations to achieve this purpose. The campaign focuses on different themes for every year. For instance, “Empowering Teachers” was the theme for 2017, the year World Teachers’ Day commemorated the 20th anniversary of the 1997 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel bringing the sometimes-neglected area of teaching personnel at higher education institutions into the conversation about the status of teachers.
The following year, 2018, UNESCO adopted the theme “The Right to Education Means the Right to a Qualified Teacher,” commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and serving as a reminder that the right to education cannot be realized without trained and qualified teachers.UNESCO declares that everyone can help by celebrating the profession, by generating awareness about teacher issues and by ensuring that teacher respect is part of the natural order of things.Schools and students, for instance, prepare a special occasion for teachers on this day.
More than 100 countries commemorate World Teachers’ Dayand each holds its own celebrations such as the case of India, which has been commemorating National Teachers’ Day every 5 September.In Australia, as the day usually falls during school holidays, Australian states and territories celebrate on the last Friday of October each year instead.
The theme of World Teachers’ Day 2023 is “The teachers we need for the education we want”. Teachers are the heart of education and in many countries are leaving the profession they love, and fewer young people aspire to become one. UNESCO estimates that the world needs over 69 million new teachers by 2030, and the shortage only continues to grow.
The 2024 celebrations will focus on “Valuing teacher voices: towards a new social contract for education”. The theme underscores the urgency of engaging with teachers to address the challenges they face but, most importantly, to acknowledge and benefit from the expert knowledge and input they bring to education.
