World Teachers Day

What the day is

World Teachers' Day is observed on October 5. It is a UNESCO observance, held with the International Labour Organization and education unions, and it concerns the profession's working conditions as much as its celebration.

It is distinct from the national teachers' days many countries hold on their own dates, which are usually about thanking individual teachers. This one is about the profession globally.

Origin and background

The date commemorates the adoption on October 5, 1966 of the ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, an international instrument setting out standards for teachers' preparation, employment, conditions and responsibilities. A parallel recommendation covering higher education teaching personnel followed in 1997. The day itself has been marked since 1994.

Each year carries a theme, and those themes track the profession's pressures: shortages, workload, pay, status, and the conditions teachers work under in crisis and conflict settings. The shortage is the persistent one. UNESCO has repeatedly estimated that many millions of additional teachers are needed worldwide to meet universal education targets, driven both by population growth and by attrition among teachers who leave the profession.

In wealthier countries the pattern is different but related: recruitment holds up reasonably while retention does not, with workload and pay relative to comparable graduate professions the reasons most often cited by those who leave.

How to take part

• Contact a teacher who mattered to you and be specific about what they did. Teachers rarely learn how things turned out.
• Thank the staff at your own children's school, including the ones outside the classroom.
• Read this year's theme. It is a quick way to understand what the profession is arguing about internationally.
• Support the practical things: donate supplies, volunteer, or show up to a governing body meeting where funding is decided.
• Resist the framing of teaching as vocation rather than work. Goodwill is not a substitute for pay and conditions, which is much of what the day exists to say.