Teaching as an Occupation and Learning Profession

Abstract

The teaching profession is currently the subject of many high level international discussions involving organisations such as the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. There is agreement across these agencies that teachers and the quality of the teaching workforce are central to the future development of all nations, irrespective of their global location. This point was made most trenchantly by OECD’s Schooling for Tomorrow project. It posed a ‘meltdown scenario’ for the future in which it flagged the possibility of there not being enough teachers to meet the needs of systems and governments for the educational imperatives of the twenty-first century (OECD, 2001). Such a scenario, if realised, would pose a serious threat to meeting national goals and objectives as well as to the aspirations that students and parents have for the future.