UNESCO is currently considering the establishment of a flag-ship programme that focuses upon teachers, specifically upon the improvement of teacher education, with the aim of enabling large numbers of teachers to provide quality basic education for all (see box, above).


The teaching flagship under consideration would address two sets of issues. The first would involve the substantive chal-lenges of recruiting, educating, appraising and paying teaching professionals,and then providing, as far as possible, a quality teaching/learning environment in which to operate. The second set would revolve around the challenge of ensuring that 34 teachers and their organizations are fully involved in edu-cational decision-making at all levels of a system, including the formulation and implementation of EFA national plans.

Specifically, the proposed flagship initiative envisages a pro-gramme to strengthen quality teacher education in Africa in collaboration with ILO, UNICEF, Education International and other partners. Among other things, this programme would include an 18-month effort to evaluate selected Écoles nor-males supérieures in French-speaking Africa, as well as the development of minimal sub-regional standards for quali-fications for entry into the teaching profession in sub-regions where such common standards are desired but currently lacking.

Another objective would be to establish a sub-regional inter-ministerial inter-sectoral process for enriching the quality of teacher education reform. This project would be piloted in a sub-region in which several ministries of education or higher education are engaged in fundamental reform of their teacher-education programmes to help meet Dakar goals. This project would involve UNICEF, the ILO and Education International together with UNESCO.