The Quality Of An Education System Cannot Exceed The Quality Of Its Teachers

To improve the quality of education in Africa and other developing countries, we must all operate from the standpoint that teachers are critical the development of our education system.

Here are excerpts from an article by Ara Santiago- Teacher Quality: A new teaching force culled from the Inter-American Development Bank website.

The current literature supports the fact that teachers are the main driver of in-school effects on student attainment. Further, it provides evidence on the difference made by a good and effective teacher; counteracting other negative effects, such as a disadvantaged background 



Teachers are the essential link in the chain from education spending to student learning, so improving teacher effectiveness is a critical component for improving student outcomes. Teacher effectiveness in turn depends on: (a) skills and knowledge – whether they know what to teach and the best way to teach it, and (b) teacher behavior in the classroom – whether they do their best to apply what they know? 

The context in which teachers work has significantly changed over the past decade, yet teaching has not been sufficiently adapted to these new situations: teachers basically continue to have the same preparation and toolkit that they had before. Unless actions to update teaching to the new environment take place, there will not be a substantial improvement in quality in the system and corresponding reduction in inequalities.

This implies a new challenge to update the profession in a rapidly changing environment and in the unlikely perspective of increases in spending as those of the past decade. The improvement of human resources (i.e. teachers, technical staff, and principals) has become the main education-related concern for most countries in LAC

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