Empowering teachers
Placing teachers at the centre
UNICEF places teachers at the very centre of digital transformation, ensuring that technology serves educators rather than sidelining them. In the digital education space, UNICEF focuses on training teachers, improving motivation and retention, and supporting hybrid and remote teaching models.
In all, 44 million additional teachers are needed globally for primary and secondary education to achieve SDG4. Insufficient numbers of qualified teachers — especially in rural and marginalised areas — coupled with high turnover, heavy administrative workloads, and uneven deployment disrupt the continuity and quality of education. Teachers spend too much time on administration, significantly reducing their time for actual teaching.
Many teachers lack adequate pre-service and in-service training, leading to gaps in subject knowledge and pedagogical skills. This makes it difficult to deliver effective, engaging lessons, particularly in under-resourced settings where structured support is limited.
Focus areas
- Delivering tailored Continuous Professional Development programmes – online and offline – prioritised towards structured pedagogy and teaching at the right level, including peer mentoring and communities of practice
- Deploying AI-driven platforms that reduce teachers' administrative burden by streamlining communication, automating routine tasks, and generating actionable insights for differentiated instruction
- Designing hybrid and remote teaching models that allow a single qualified educator to reach students across multiple locations simultaneously – critical for rural, underserved and emergency contexts
- Co-designing all solutions with teachers for relevance, ownership and impact – ensuring educators shape the technology, not the other way around
- Building national capacity through strategic partnerships with teacher networks
- Leveraging AI to adapt and contextualise teaching materials – accessibility features, local language translation, and curriculum alignment – through scalable, cost-effective pipelines