FOCUS AREA: TEACHERS




IT ALL
STARTS
WITH
A GREAT
TEACHER
   In schools, teachers are the single most important driver of how
   much students learn.

   WHY IT MATTERS                                                 OUR APPROACH
   A teacher’s responsibility is not simply to teach. Teachers    Successful education systems have teachers who are
   must help students acquire the competencies to problem         equipped with what they need to teach effectively and
   solve, analyze, focus on difficult tasks, think creatively,    who are motivated to do their best. Ensuring
   communicate, and work with others. Teachers have the           this requires, first, that policies and systems designed
   responsibility to ensure that all children—each with their     to support teachers focus on improving what is
   own challenges and potential­   —can learn effectively and     happening in the classroom, and second, that there
   have an enriching experience in school. Successful education   are human resource policies to develop a teacher
   systems have policies to attract, prepare, motivate, and       workforce equipped and motivated to ensure learning.
   support teachers in this challenging task. Unfortunately,      Teachers must be engaged and have the right skills and
   despite good intentions, many countries are failing to do      professional development opportunities to be effective.
   this. Students often sit in classrooms where they do not       More importantly, they and society must internalize the
   learn. Eventually they see no point in staying in school and   immense responsibility teachers have and the immense
   drop out, having wasted the most important years for skills    impact teachers have on the young lives they interact
   development. Governments and societies, meanwhile, will        with every day. The World Bank is working with countries
   have used up scarce financial resources without achieving      to reform teacher professional development programs so
   the learning outcomes and quality education they need.         that every classroom has a competent, empowered, and
                                                                  motivated teacher.
There is much at stake. An effective teacher impacts the lives of
students by making it possible for them to learn and gain skills.
An ineffective teacher not only wastes a precious year of potential
learning, but also doesn’t give students what they need to go on and
learn in subsequent years.



OUR PRIORITIES:
1 Attract the best into teaching                                    4 Support teachers’ professional development
Better selection and retention, alongside policies that             Training needs to be a continuous process embedded
transition ineffective teachers out of the teaching force,          into pre-service and in-service teacher training instead
will have positive long-term effects on teacher quality.            of one-off programs. Effective training must include
                                                                    practical techniques such as how to manage the
2 Motivate teachers to perform                                      classroom, engage students, reduce transition time, and
Incentives are essential for effective teaching and can             effectively check student comprehension.
include rewarding teachers not only based on seniority
but also on effectiveness. Incentives can also increase             5 Improve curriculum
the prestige of teachers within the community.                      The curriculum must be age appropriate and focus on
                                                                    the skills and knowledge that children need to learn. It’s
                                                                    important to allow schools and teachers to implement
3 Improve metrics to support teaching
                                                                    change in the classroom, including making use of
Learning assessments provide teachers with the
                                                                    technology to improve instruction and learning.
information they need to better teach students at their
own level. Nevertheless, most education systems do not
assess learning.




       educationgp@worldbank.org    worldbank.org/education    @WBG_Education Human Capital Project #INVESTinPeople