More than 27 million trained teachers are needed for sub-Saharan African to achieve universal primary education by 2030, a new report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

The growing demand for teachers is due to increasing numbers of school-age children, high attrition and low recruitment rates of teachers. Therefore almost nine in 10countries in sub Saharan Africa will need to create new teaching positions to achieve universal primary education.

“For every 100 children in 2012, there will be 147 primary school-age children in 2030 in sub Saharan Africa alone and therefore the continent will need to create 2.3 million new teaching positions by 2030, while filling about 3.9 million vacant positions due to attrition,” says the report

If current trends continue, there will be more children needing primary teachers in 2030 than today in Uganda, Eritrea, Gambia, Malawi and Nigeria. But in the rush to fill this gap, the report says that many countries are now lowering standards, often hiring new teachers with little or no training.

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“Without concerted efforts, the chronic shortage of teachers will continue to deny children the fundamental right to primary education for decades to come,” says the report.

In East Africa, for example, the average ratio of pupils per teacher is 40. Among the countries surveyed in the region, Rwanda has the highest number of pupils per teacher at 59, Uganda has 48 while Tanzania has an average of 46 pupils per teacher.

“Most countries can afford to hire the extra teachers needed in classrooms if they continue to steadily increase their education budgets as is the case in recent years. However, they must also prepare to accommodate a growing number of school-age children in classrooms that are already overcrowded,” says the report adding that this pressure has led many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, to resort to the hiring of untrained teachers.

“This short-term approach will not deliver the promise of universal primary education and the ambitions of the post-2015 era, whereby every child is in school and learning,” the report adds.

The situation in many countries, the report says may deteriorate as governments struggle with overcrowded classrooms and the rising demand for education from the growing school-age populations.

To help evaluate the costs of closing this gap, the Unesco Institute for Statistics (UIS) has developed a set of financial projections based on the current levels of education spending and projected economic growth.

According to UIS data, sub-Saharan Africa will have to spend an extra $5.2 billion per year to pay the salaries of the additional teachers required by 2020.

Nigeria alone accounts for about 35 per cent of this required additional spending on salaries. With the greatest number of children out of school, Nigeria will have to allocate an extra $1.8 billion per year to cover the salaries of additional teachers.
Teacher costs are expected to rise by $0.8 billion each year in South Africa and by $0.3 billion in Ethiopia and Tanzania.