At the dawn of every day, teachers should want to get up and go to a job they love.

But for teachers to meet all expectations, they need support from government administrators, schools and colleges, students and parents and even their community to enable and empower them to perform their duty in their noble profession.

UNESCO annually celebrates World Teachers’ Day on 5 October. This year’s theme is: “Recovery begins with teachers”.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said the crucial message is that teachers are key to recovery in a wide range of situations. By giving hope for the future and providing structure and a sense of normalcy, teachers can help to mitigate the effects of conflict, natural disaster and displacement.

“In all countries, teachers are guarantors of the quality of education, provided they receive adequate training, respect and support,” she said.

Held annually on 5 October since 1994, World Teachers’ Day celebrates the essential role of teachers in providing quality education at all levels.

A teacher is defined as a person whose professional activity involves the transmission of knowledge, attitudes and skills to their students. This is still the key responsibility of a teacher today − as it was centuries ago.

Despite the technologies, gadgets and tools that have been developed and promoted to improve the standards of education systems in Asia, it is the quality and dedication of teachers that will determine the quality of education and the quality of pupils.

The dedication of my own teachers inspired me to study hard and achieve a quality education, even though resources were limited in my poor farming community, in what is now Republic of Korea, in the 1950s and 1960s.

At primary and elementary school I often had 70 or 80 classmates. By today’s standards that’s a disaster. But I and my classmates wanted to learn and were blessed with dedicated teachers. It didn’t matter that we had little equipment, textbooks, or a library. Our teachers taught all of us to read, write and to calculate.

My teachers provided the tools and inspiration for me to continue studying and to find my way in the world. And for that I am ever thankful to my teachers in that little school in the rice fields.

Globally, there are many different challenges for teacher policy, including recruitment and employment, training and professional development, teacher quality, status and working conditions, workload, duties and autonomy and compensation: salary and non-salary benefits.

In many countries, a shortage of trained teachers poses a major barrier, at all education levels.

The main challenges concerning teachers in East Asia and the Pacific region are a lack of trained teachers; replacing current teachers; attracting and retaining well-qualified candidates; and improving teacher morale, according to the 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report.

In East Asia and the Pacific, 2.1 million primary school teachers will need to be recruited and trained to replace those retiring or leaving their post, in accordance with the report. This figure represents about one-quarter of the 8.4 million primary school teachers needed worldwide.

Globally, 10.3 million teachers − 1.3 million teachers each year − need to be recruited over eight years (2007-2015) just to provide universal primary education by 2015.

Thailand likewise has a shortage of teachers in schools, according to a UNESCO unpublished paper. Under the Ministry of Education, there are shortages in all subsectors, basic education, vocational education, higher education, and non-formal education.

At the basic education level, the Office of the Basic Education Commission reported that the shortage of teachers was around 70,000 to 90,000 each year from 2000-2005.

A significant number of secondary schools in Thailand do not have teachers who majored in the critically needed subjects, especially at the lower secondary level, according to the paper. As many as 80 per cent of lower secondary schools and more than half of upper secondary schools do not have teachers with majors in mathematics and computer science.

About 60 per cent of lower secondary schools do not have teachers with majors in science and 45 per cent of them do not have teachers with English majors.

Teacher shortages in critical subjects are particularly severe in small and rural schools and contribute to inequity in the quality of education.

The shortage of teachers indicates that there is more work for the current teaching force and it inevitably affects the quality of teaching.

Thai teachers’ workloads are heavier than the average of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries, especially at the secondary school level. The average number of teaching hours of OECD countries is 19 hours, while Thai teachers teach 29.5 hours at the lower secondary level.

According to Teacher Watch in 2007, Thai teachers at the basic education level teach up to four subjects, 22 hours a week. Also, 36 per cent of teachers teach multiple grades at the same time.

Improving teachers’ compensation is essential to strengthening the teaching profession. Appropriate compensation is a strong incentive to attract and retain talented teachers.

The experience of Finland and my own country, Republic of Korea, has done much to raise our optimism. Both countries have strongly emphasized education as a key to economic success.

The two countries have highly motivated teachers, with good remuneration and working conditions. In both countries, on average, teachers earn more than ordinary citizens. This has inspired students to do well and has contributed to an intelligent workforce with the skills and knowledge needed by employers.

According to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an investigation conducted in 2007 among eighth grade students, South Korea is the top-performing country on average test scores for students.

In terms of social and community service spending, the Thai government spends most on education.

Thailand’s allocation of almost 25 per cent of total public expenditure to education was the highest in East Asia and the Pacific region.

The fiscal year 2009 education budget increased by 15 per cent from 2008 and accounts for 21.48 per cent of the total government budget.

The budget for pre-primary to secondary education gained an 11 per cent increase in 2009 from the previous year.

For the fiscal year 2010, the planned budget for education is expected to decline by four per cent, but still accounts for 23.7 per cent of the total government budget.

In addition to the regular budget, the country has provided extra funding for education under two economic stimulus packages, known as SP1 and SP2, which amounted to about USD$5.4 billion between 2009-2012.

While SP1 included two education initiatives specifically targeted at the most vulnerable consisting of the 15-year free education project that includes pre-primary to secondary education to cover fees for education, books, educational materials, student uniforms and a range of extra-curricular activities.

The second project, under SP1, was specifically aimed at the unemployed, those facing redundancy and new graduates. This project had a focus on vocational education and training with a specific focus on agriculture and retraining.

The focus of a second three-year stimulus package, SP2, is to enhance the quality of learners and improve the status of the teaching profession. Proposed education projects aim to improve the literacy skills of over 160,000 students, to upgrade 3,000 school conditions, to reduce the computer-student ratio from 1:38 to1:20, and to provide a teacher development programme.

There is a long-term strategy to improve access to ongoing professional development for teachers, including new models for pre- and in-service training. Incentives have been put in place to encourage young people into the profession to in part address the current shortage of teachers. In the short term, as facing persistent shortages of teachers, particularly in core subject areas, more effective use of TV, radio and online learning options are being implemented.

Under the government’s 2012 Thai Khemkhaeng package or “Straighten Thailand” scheme, almost seven billion baht was approved to upgrade the system of teacher development.

Thailand’s policy to improve the status of the teaching profession is underway and many important steps, such as teacher licensing, evaluation of teachers, lengthening pre-service teacher training, and increasing the compensation of teachers, should lead to quality improvements in teaching. However, these steps will not take full effect until the shortage of teachers and administrative staff is addressed.

By ignoring both, Thailand risks a widening gap between urban areas and disadvantaged rural areas. Changes in policy will require additional resources and political leadership. In order for Thailand to strengthen the efforts of education reform, consensus building based on empirical research is also necessary.

As it has become a middle-income country, Thailand faces new development challenges. It needs a well educated population. It is now difficult for Thailand to compete with Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Vietnam in sectors dependent on low-end cheap labour. Thailand also faces increasing competition from other rapidly developing Asian countries such as China, India and Malaysia.

Given such increased competition, Thailand could examine the East Asian success model of growth with equity. Success in expanding and improving secondary education was a major source for the economic prosperity of newly industrialized countries such as Republic of Korea and Singapore. Thus, it is imperative that Thailand improves the quality and comprehensiveness of its secondary education system as articulated in its education reform policy and reflected in the National Education Act of 1999.

This means that the improvement of secondary education and the teachers providing it must become a major national priority in the years ahead. This is essential if Thailand is to have the human resources needed for an increasingly knowledge-based economy.

By Gwang Jo-Kim, Director of the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau for Education and UNESCO Bangkok