The UN Secretary-General has issued a global warning of a teacher shortage. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cannot be achieved by 2030 without 44 million additional teachers. Teach For All aims to catalyse the needed progress through building a global network – currently including organisations in 62 countries – that develops the leadership required to transform education at classroom, school and system levels.
Teach For All is an international organisation that builds and supports a growing network of local organisations working to cultivate movements of promising leaders to improve the education systems in their countries. Each network organisation recruits young graduates (known as "fellows") within their countries and trains them in teaching, inspiring them to become committed leaders. Fellows complete a two-year placement in schools in communities where access to high-quality education is limited. After this placement, they join an alumni programme and continue to work in various roles across the education system (teachers, school leaders, policy makers, social entrepreneurs, etc.).
In light of a report published by UNESCO in February 2024, UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a global warning of a teacher shortage. According to the report, we urgently need 44 million more teachers by 2030 to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), which is to provide primary and secondary education for all. The consequences of this shortage are overcrowded classrooms, overworked teachers, educational disparities and financial pressure on education systems, affecting both educational quality and access to learning.
The Teach For All approach helps to provide talented, committed teachers and leaders in disadvantaged communities to address this complex issue from all levels of education. Furthermore, the extensive Teach For All network enables teachers and alumni to draw inspiration from the ideas, innovations and practices of their peers to address the issues they face.
With 100,000 alumni across the network, the support of the Audemars Piguet Foundation for Common Good is helping to boost cross-border learning and leadership development of alumni such that they pursue their commitment to bring about change in their local education systems.
