UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Ensuring that every child gets a teacher is a prerequisite to reaching the Education for All goals. Today, 58 million children are still not in school, and while a variety of factors constrain efforts to provide quality primary education for all children, ensuring that classrooms have enough teachers is at the top of the list. Since 2006, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics has been projecting the global demand for teachers. This article presents the latest figures and the methodology behind these projections; it also estimates the costs associated with recruiting enough teachers in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve universal primary education by 2020.