from the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030
Schools from 165 countries around the world have been closed on March 25 due to the COVID-19 epidemic, which has a severe impact on nearly 1.5 billion students, including 63 million teachers at both primary and secondary schools around the world and it is expected that the number of those affected will continue to increase. The schools from all over the world have to be closed like this. It is challenges for the world education system during this unprecedented time and it can be seen that this crisis has slowed global development goals. In particular, the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG Goals) of the United Nations “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Moreover, this will result in a crisis of learning and education inequality around the world that tends to be more severe, especially among the poorest or the most vulnerable children, adolescence and youth.
Therefore, it is very necessary to have continuous financial and educational support for various educational systems. Supporting for leadership, financial resources and teaching materials is all necessary for the quality of teaching and learning system in order to ensure that the quality of the teaching and learning system will continue in the midst of this crisis and the school needs to be able to return to teaching and learning in the most perfect conditions. This is so that millions of students will not miss out on learning, especially students from the poorest countries and marginalized communities which are most likely to be affected.
To ensure that learning continues under the COVID-19 crisis, teachers, the main force of the education system, are responsible for helping students achieve their learning goals. Teachers must also do things together with school administrators to ensure that they can create quality distance learning including learning and providing information on the control measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic to students as well.
As mentioned above, the international working group on teacher for education 2030 urges governments, educational administrators, and sponsors from both the public and private sectors to recognize the important role of teachers in participating in the crisis recovery and urges the relevant parties to proceed as follows:
1) The employment and compensation are maintained including various benefits for personnel involved in education in accordance with employment standards.
2) The health, safety and well-being of both teachers and learners should be the first priority, the emotional and psychological support is provided to teachers to face increased pressures during this critical time and adequate communication tools, health risks, and preventative measures are provided to students.
3) Teachers should be an integral part of the COVID-19 situation that affects education by participating in all stages of educational policy and planning.
4) Teachers receive sufficient support, the teaching profession and necessary training including a flexible education system that can be adjusted according to the needs of teachers and students who are affected by this crisis to make sure that teachers and the education system can respond better if there is the crisis in the future.
5) The importance of “equality” is at the heart of the educational response, such as
providing the necessary technology and careful monitoring of those technologies, using teaching materials both digital and traditional technology by focusing on the equality of learners in continuous distance learning.
6) The teaches are in need of a major group of help from this crisis that needs to help through the teacher professional development process especially among the poorest countries in the world.
