Sixty years after the adoption of the ‘ILO·UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers’, a comprehensive revision is being pursued. The aim is to modernize international standards on the roles and working conditions of teachers to reflect changes in the educational environment, such as the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) and a rise in violence targeting teachers. In the education sector, there are calls to discuss, along with drawing up the new recommendation, ways to enhance the effectiveness of its implementation.

According to the Korean National Commission for UNESCO on the 6th, UNESCO decided at its 43rd General Conference last year to revise the recommendation concerning the status of teachers, and it is conducting technical consultations, including reviewing key issues, after forming an independent expert group. It is still at the stage of preparing a draft revision, and once the draft is completed, it plans to gather opinions from member states and teacher organizations.

The recommendation adopted in 1966 is an international standard that sets out the professionalism of teachers, academic freedom, teacher preparation, recruitment, working conditions, social security, and more. As the only international normative document addressing the status of primary and secondary teachers, it is not legally binding but has been used as an international frame of reference on the rights and responsibilities of the teaching profession. UNESCO, together with the International Labour Organization (ILO), has established a joint committee of experts to review national situations and to urge implementation.

The social environment surrounding the status of teachers is changing rapidly. A review report prepared by the UNESCO Secretariat in October last year diagnosed that the educational environment has changed greatly due to the development of digital technologies including AI, curriculum reforms centered on sustainable development, teacher shortages, a learning crisis, climate change and migration, and deepening inequality. UNESCO presented as the goal of the revision “to further solidify teaching as a collaborative profession that is respected and protected”.

Responses to violence against teachers are also on the table. The review report pointed out that violence against teachers is increasing and proposed that the recommendation should reflect the need to protect teachers from violence and to provide mental health and psychological·social support, and work-life balance. It also presented as tasks to be included in the new recommendation the capacity to use digital technologies including AI, teacher participation in the process of digital transformation, diversity and inclusion, and strengthening gender equality.

Based on the results of the technical consultations, once the UNESCO Secretariat prepares the first draft of the revision, it will solicit opinions from stakeholders such as member states and teacher organizations. Reflecting these views, it will compose a second draft, and after further consultations, a final version will be produced. After going through adoption procedures at a special intergovernmental conference in 2027, the revised text will be submitted to the 44th General Conference of UNESCO.

While welcoming the direction of the revision, the education community also emphasized that ways to promote implementation of the recommendation should be discussed together. Hyun Kyung-hee, spokesperson of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union, said, “The 1966 recommendation contains content that, even by current standards, should naturally be guaranteed, but many elements, such as political basic rights and the right to rest, are not being implemented domestically,” and added, “Along with preparing the new recommendation, efforts to ensure that the existing recommendation is properly implemented are also important.”