World Teachers’ Day (WTD) is held annually on 5 October to celebrate the essential role of teachers in providing quality education at all levels. The theme for 2011 is "Teachers for Gender Equality”. Despite the teaching profession being made up largely of women, inequality remains an issue.
Policy Forum on gender equality
In the same week, IIEP will be holding a two-day Policy Forum on Gender equality in education: looking beyond parity. This forum will bring together more than 100 participants, including Ministers of education, policy-makers, experts in the fields of education and gender equality, and representatives of donor’s agencies and international organizations. Together, they will debate on ways to promote gender equality in education at the school and classroom levels as well as at the institutional level. The results of these discussions will be shared at UNESCO Headquarters on 5 October, during a special event organized for the WTD.
Teaching at the secondary level
One current focus of IIEP research is the management of secondary teachers, specifically Secondary teacher supply, remuneration and career; Training policies to address teacher needs for the post- primary cycle; Critical issues of lower secondary teacher deployment and Organisational aspects of secondary teacher management.
The main findings of this research will be presented at an IIEP Workshop in Paris on 4–5 November 2011. These findings will also lay the foundations for several case studies aimed at analysing and drawing practical lessons from various national secondary teacher management policies and systems.
Promoting codes of conduct for teachers
IIEP is also committed to helping countries in the design and implementation of teacher codes of conduct. The Institute offers a platform of resources (with detailed guidelines, codes from 50 countries, international survey results, teacher training materials, relevant links, etc.).
In this context, IIEP organized a regional workshop on the “Design and effective use of teacher codes of conduct” in Seoul, Republic of Korea, from 11 to 14 May 2011. An online forum to be held in autumn 2011 will provide an opportunity to pursue these discussions and open them up to other regions. Register for this forum at: eforum@iiep.unesco.org
Similar regional workshops will be offered in the future. Moreover, IIEP would be happy to provide assistance to countries that are in the process of developing their own codes of conduct for teachers, and willing to learn from international experience in this field.
