This paper is part of the UNESCO Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning. The Series seeks to better understand how mobile technologies can be used to improve educational access, equity and quality around the world. It comprises fourteen individual papers that will be published throughout 2012.
The Series is divided into two broad subsets: six papers examine mobile learning initiatives and their policy implications, and six papers examine how mobile technologies can support teachers and improve their practice.
The need to train high-quality teachers is urgent. According to the latest data available from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the world is facing a massive teacher supply problem. The planet will need approximately 8.2 million new teachers to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal of providing universal primary education by 2015. Of the 8.2 million primary-school teachers required, 6.1 million will be needed to replace teachers that leave the profession in the next three years, and 2.1 million are needed to assume new posts. To put these numbers in sobering perspective, 8.2 million is roughly equivalent to the entire population of the United Arab Emirates, 6.1 million is more than all the primary- and secondary-school educators in the United States combined, and 2.1 million is approximately the total number of people who will fly on commercial airlines in the next 24 hours. Imagine, for a moment, the labour and resources that would be required to turn every airline passenger – walking through terminals from Santiago to Moscow – into an effective primary-school teacher. Such an analogy, however crude, helps expose the enormity of the current teacher shortage. […]
To access existing and forthcoming titles in the Series, please see:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/mobile-learning-resources/unescomobilelearningseries/