The more meaningful way of respecting teachers is to ensure quality professional education before they enter classrooms; opportunities for continuing professional development after they enter them; reasonable workloads and working conditions; professional autonomy; fair remuneration; safe workplaces; meaningful participation in decisions affecting education; and institutional support for adapting to technological and social change.

Today’s teachers must respond to digital learning, artificial intelligence, inclusive education, changing assessment methods and increasingly diverse learning needs.

Better teacher deployment, continuous professional development, modern training in digital technologies and AI, opportunities for career progression, adequate resources and greater participation of teachers in education policy should form part of that agenda.

World Teachers’ Day is observed on 5 October, an occasion when people celebrate with ceremonial speeches, greeting cards, and expressions of gratitude. However, our societies should value teachers in practice as much as they praise them in words. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, one of the foundational international instruments defining the rights, responsibilities, and professional standards of teachers. The theme of World Teachers’ Day 2026 is “Standing with teachers: 60 years of protecting the profession, advancing its status and shaping our futures.” The world of 2026 is profoundly different from the world in which the Recommendation was adopted in 1966. Teachers today work in an environment transformed by digital technology and artificial intelligence. They are expected to respond to increasingly diverse classrooms, inclusion requirements, climate-related disruption, migration and forced displacement, changing curricula, learning crises and growing social expectations. UNESCO consequently identifies three interconnected dimensions of teachers’ status that require attention: symbolic status, or the extent to which society recognizes and values teachers; professional status,........

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