Title: Balancing teacher quality and quantity

Authors: Helen Bond

Addresses: School of Education, Howard University, 2441 4th Street, ASA 206, Washington DC, USA

Abstract: The world is facing a shortage of trained teachers. According to the 2010 Global Monitoring Report approximately 10.3 million teachers will be needed globally to staff classrooms from Bangkok to Canada. The situation is worse in Sub-Saharan Africa. Estimates suggest that approximately 1.2 million new teachers will be needed in Sub-Saharan Africa alone to achieve universal primary education goals by 2015. Increases in primary school enrollments, drought, and HIV-AIDS have exacerbated the need for well trained teachers. Despite the need, the focus is on balancing quality with quantity. An effective teacher is deemed a critical element, although not the only one, in a student|s success in the classroom. This paper focuses on the dilemma of meeting universal primary education goals in Sub-Saharan Africa, while maintaining teacher quality in fragile contexts.

Keywords: Sub-Saharan Africa; teachers; Education for All; EFA; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; UNESCO; primary education; teacher quality; quantity; knowledge; learning; teacher training.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKL.2010.034481

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 2010 Vol.6 No.1, pp.28 - 42

Published online: 05 Aug 2010 *

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