AFRICA - By 2015 sub-Saharan Africa will need 1.6 million teachers says UNESCO

Rome (Fides Service)- In sub-Saharan Africa teachers are ever scarcer and the number will drop further in the coming decade. This was said by the United Nations office for education, science and culture UNESCO in a report drafted on the basis of a world wide survey undertaken by its Statistics Institute ISU.
The report “Teachers and quality education: assessing global needs in 2015”, says Sub-Saharan Africa, and especially Niger and Chad, “will need 1.6 million more teachers by 2015, passing from the present number of 2.4 million to 4 million”, an increase of 68%, to guarantee “primary education for every child”. Chad needs four times as many teachers, Ethiopia needs double the present number.
UNESCO is concerned not only for quantity but also for the quality of the few teachers in these countries. The report says “usually countries with less teachers have less qualified teachers”.
“Secondary education is the minimum qualification for teaching” the report says “but this condition is respected only by 57% of teachers in Congo for example”.
The UNESCO report also speaks of a widespread phenomenon of “volunteer’ teachers without any training who educate their own children and those of relations and neighbours. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 26/4/2006 righe 26 parole 451)