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GlobalTeacher Status Index

The first comprehensive attempt to compare the status of teachers across the world.

What do teachers really mean to us?

 

The Global Teacher Status Index is based on in-depth opinion by Populus in 35 countries that explores the attitudes on issues ranging from what is a fair salary for teachers to whether they think pupils respect teachers to how highly people rank their own education system. There have been many international comparisons in education, but this the first time that the role of teacher status has been studied in-depth. 

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The growth of internationally comparative student assessment measures such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the annual publication of the OECDs annual Education at a Glance, provides a global perspective of how children perform on comparable educational tests across many countries of the world. Understanding how this performance relates to the competence and effectiveness of teachers has been much debated – with the now famous aphorism that “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers”. 

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But what is much less well understood within discussions of the roles of the teacher in improving pupil outcomes are the roles that social standing, or status, play in the position of teachers in each country, and how these might impact on education systems and pupil results? 

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In 2013, the Varkey Foundation conducted the first Global Teacher Status Index (GTSI13) to try and establish the answers to some of these questions. This showed that across all the countries reviewed, teachers occupied a mid-ranking of status, with teachers recording the highest status in China, and lowest in Israel and Brazil. Teachers were most commonly thought to be similar to social workers in terms of status.

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Five years on, this work presents an updated analysis to build on the results. 

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In this report we are able to show that both high teacher pay and high status are necessary to produce the best academic outcomes for pupils.

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Read the 2018 Global Teacher Status Index here:

Key Findings

Click the flags below to view the key stats by country

“It’s heartening that since the first Global Teacher Status Index in 2013 there has been a modest rise in the status of teachers globally. But there is still a mountain to climb before teachers everywhere are given the respect they deserve. After all, they’re responsible for shaping the future”.

Sunny Varkey, founder of the Varkey Foundation

The Global Teacher Status Index 2018 shows for the very first time that there is a direct link between teacher status and pupil performance as measured by PISA scores. Countries which have higher teacher status are more likely to record higher PISA scores. This new finding for the 2018 Index shows that high teacher status is not just a nice to have – increasing it is likely, all things being equal, to lead to greater student outcomes in that country.

 

They are based on in-depth opinion polling and analysis by Professor Peter Dolton and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research of over 35,000 adults aged 16-64 and over 5,500 additional serving teachers across 35 countries. The Global Teacher Status Index (GTSI) 2018 is the most comprehensive study ever of teacher respect around the world. It follows on from and expands upon the first GTSI which surveyed 21 countries in 2013 and inspired the Global Teacher Prize.

 

The survey also found that in 28 of the 35 countries surveyed in 2018, teachers are being paid less than the amount people consider to be a fair wage for the job. The only countries in which teachers are being paid more than the amount people consider fair for the job are Finland, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Singapore.

 

While the public in most countries do not believe teachers are being paid fairly, people also tend to underestimate how hard they are working. In all but six countries of the 35 countries polled in 2018, the general public underestimates – often considerably - the number of hours teachers work per week. Latin Americans underestimate teachers’ working hours more than any other, particularly in Peru (by 13 hours), Argentina (by 12.5 hours) and Panama (11.4 hours). These were followed by Egypt, Brazil, Malaysia, Chile and Colombia. In both the UK and the US, the public underestimated teachers’ working hours by around five hours per week. The only countries in which teachers report working fewer hours than the general public thinks they do are Canada, Finland, China, Indonesia, Uganda and Japan.

 

However, the survey revealed that teacher status is rising globally. Of the 21 countries polled in 2013 and again in 2018, 13 have seen their teacher status score increase, while seven have seen it fall and one, China, continues to have the highest score possible. The biggest increases were seen in Japan (which rose from 17th place out of the 21 countries polled in 2013 to 11th of 21 in 2018) and Switzerland (15th of 21 in 2013 and 8th out of 21 now), while the biggest drops were seen in Greece (2nd out of 21 in 2013 down to 6th of 21 now) and Egypt (6th of 21 in 2013 down to 12th of 21 now).

 

Out of the 35 countries polled in 2018, the Asian nations of China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Korea and India rank higher in terms of teacher status than every European country and every Western nation - including the US, New Zealand and Canada. South Americans accord teachers lower status than any other region. Every South American nation polled ranked in the bottom half of the survey, with Brazil coming bottom and Argentina fifth from bottom.

 

The GTSI 2018 also reveals that support for performance related pay has fallen precipitously across the world. Every single country polled in 2013 and again in 2018 reports (often considerably) lower support for teachers being paid according to the results of their pupils now than they did five years ago. In Finland, 80% of people surveyed in 2013 supported performance related pay, but this has fallen to 21% today, while in the UK 74% supported performance related pay five years ago, compared with 34% now. Support for performance related pay is generally higher in emerging and lower income countries than in more established economies.

 

As the status of teachers has generally risen around the world, so too has public confidence in their own country’s education system. In 17 of the 21 countries surveyed in both 2013 and 2018 people rate their national education system higher now than they did five years ago. The only countries where confidence in education has fallen since they were last polled are Egypt, Brazil, Turkey and Japan. Japan is unusual as a country that scores highly in PISA and yet reports low public confidence in its education system.

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Read the 2013 Global Teacher Status Index here:​

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