UNESCO’s Global Report on Teachers of 26 February 2024, produced with the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030, projects a need for 44 million primary and secondary teachers by 2030. That figure describes the requirement to meet the education goal over time. It should be read as a projection, with demand shaped by both expansion and the need to replace teachers who leave. Global Report on Teachers.
The report describes different pressures across regions. Sub-Saharan Africa needs substantial workforce growth, while higher-income systems also face difficulties retaining teachers as the profession becomes less attractive. A single recruitment target cannot explain what is happening within each system.
Count the people who stay
Hiring figures answer a narrow planning question. They show how many people enter employment during a period. A school system also needs to understand how long those teachers remain and where departures are concentrated.
Consider a district that hires a new cohort each year while experienced teachers keep leaving the same schools. Its recruitment programme can meet its target while those schools continue to struggle with staffing. The next workforce review should examine the conditions behind that pattern before assuming that another recruitment campaign can resolve it.
Experience also serves a purpose beyond an individual timetable. Schools rely on teachers who know their pupils and can help colleagues understand the curriculum. When a teacher leaves, a vacancy notice captures the open position. It says less about the relationships the school must rebuild or the work remaining colleagues take on.
Retention therefore belongs within the plan for educational capacity. Leaders should ask teachers about the parts of the job that are becoming difficult to sustain. The answers need a route into staffing and budget decisions.
Make support part of the job
For a new teacher, promised mentoring has limited value if the mentor has no time to observe a lesson. Professional learning faces the same practical question. Who covers the classroom while a teacher participates, and what opportunity follows to use what they learn?
These are choices leaders can specify. A workforce plan can set aside time for new teachers to work with a colleague, then check whether that time survives the demands of the term. It can also examine the administrative work teachers are asked to complete and establish who uses the information collected.
Our argument is that retention should be assessed as an ongoing responsibility. A survey records concerns; leadership decisions determine what happens next. Teachers who raise a recurring problem should be told which change the school plans to test and when it reviews the effect.
The next staffing plan should show replacement demand separately from the posts needed for growth. Leaders can then examine whether the schools with the greatest turnover receive enough support to keep the teachers they recruit.