World Teachers’ Day 2007 to focus on better working conditions for teachers
By Adnan Rafique

ISLAMABAD—World Teachers Day 2007, falling on October 5, is underpinned by the slogan of quality teachers for quality education’ focusing on the issue of better working conditions for teachers, also implying better learning conditions for learners.
Coinciding with international teaching day, UNESCO will sponsor a series of intensive dialogues in the major cities of Pakistan. The dialogues organized by the by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) will stress on the need for core standards and guidelines on quality audits in schools, need for teacher engagement and preparation for managing quality audits.
The first in the series for four dialogues scheduled for October 5 will focus on the common features or otherwise in monitoring systems in practice, shortfalls in the existing quality audits being used in Pakistan, teachers’ role in negotiating and managing school based audits, teachers role in maintaining quality at schools and positive support to teachers provided by these quality audits.
On the day, the ITA will also announce the establishment of Anita Ghulam Ali Award to honour two outstanding teachers nominated through unions, education systems and NGOs running schools.
Its criteria and award details will be circulated to all concerned at the dialogues for adoption so that the awards can be given during WTD 2008. According to the National Education census (2005) there are 1.36 million teachers in the country and approximately 60% (723,876) of these are in the public sector and 40% (632,926) in the private sectors, representing all levels of education.
Pakistan is known for its multiple school system, each representing a range of layered delivery system in terms of medium of instruction, curriculum, management and quality of delivery and learning. The choice is confounding for citizens who are committed to education for their children as the most critical enabling tool for wellbeing. The challenge in this range of options is how quality is negotiated or expressed as an important outcome in these schooling systems. How do teachers interpret it? Is it a top down process or is it more dispersed? Quality remains an issue for these schooling systems. There is no uniform, comprehensive evaluation system (audit system) in place for schools in the country. Community based and non-formal schools are rarely evaluated and teachers paid only very poor salaries much below the national minimum wages on the pretext that they are part time. The elite private school systems on the other hand, have rigorous evaluation processes where dedicated teams are trained to carry out thorough evaluations in schools.
It is a day to remind ourselves about the 1966 resolution jointly tabled by UNESCO and ILO to improve working conditions for the profession and to articulate new needs and areas of support that must be able to influence policies at local, national and international levels with respect to the teaching profession.
In addition to providing the opportunity to draw public attention to the important role of teachers in building a better future for all the world’s learners, the day also provides an opportunity for teacher unions and education supporters to lobby their governments and to raise awareness about the need to invest in financial and human resources to achieve a free, public and qualityEducation For All by 2015.
At a recent meeting in Berlin in July 2007 with 2000 teachers and educators gathered to kick off WTD 2007 the teachers demanded: Decent working environment, a safe and healthy learning environment for teachers and learners, appropriate class-sizes and adequate pedagogical resources in the classroom, living wages-salaries that allow for decent living conditions and that are regularly paid, equal pay and equal rights for women –female teachers should not experience discrimination of any form and governments should ensure the empowerment of women in the education setting, in decision making and in the workplace.