Technology is rapidly altering the labor market and the demand for skills required to be productive. Half of today’s jobs—around 2 billion—are expected to disappear due to automation by 2030 (McKinsey & Company, 2023).

As new technological innovations occur, including artificial intelligence, 44% of workers’ skills are likely to be disrupted in the next five years, underlining the need for learning to keep up with changing market demands. (World Economic Forum, 2023).

Amid these transformations, education systems shoulder a significant responsibility: equipping students with the skills they need to navigate their future, find a job, and contribute to the prosperity of their countries. Unfortunately, education systems are struggling to equip teachers with the skills they need to help children navigate their future.

Good teachers are the cornerstone to providing quality education and ensuring children are learning. Yet, two-thirds of teachers feel they do not have the skills to design and facilitate digital learning (UNICEF, 2020). Further, there is a shortage of 44 million teachers globally to meet the SDG 4 by 2030 (UNESCO, 2024).

This discrepancy poses risks for future economic dividends, especially considering the increasing demand for digital proficiency in job markets.

GPE is responding to a demand for more direct support to apply technology to help transform education systems to improve access, learning and management. This means seizing the potential of Tech4Ed for better leveraging countries’ most important assets – human capital – to expand opportunities for growth and stability.

Challenges faced in the classroom

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 saw an "unprecedented drop in student performance" across the OECD regions.

Compared to the last edition, in 2018, the mean performance in reading fell by 10 score points, while math results fell by nearly 15 points. And nearly two thirds of 10-year-olds are unable to read and understand a simple text.

This shows that the challenges teachers are facing in their classrooms are even greater than before and further exacerbated by the impact of the pandemic.

Globally, teachers face many challenges such as large classroom sizes, the burden of administrative tasks and meeting the diverse needs of students, especially in light of severe learning losses happening worldwide. Thus, there is an urgent need to support teachers to cope with these challenges to ensure we are preparing students for the future workforce.

Keeping pace with a changing workforce

Amid all these challenges in the education ecosystem, digitization will continue to spread rapidly, and with it the demand for digital infrastructure and digital skills.

The Future of Jobs 2023 report identifies how girls and boys need a different set of skills to make the most of opportunities in rapidly evolving fields like big data, artificial intelligence, climate change management, and supply chain localization.

The need for education systems to transform to meet these increasing demands is clear. And so, support for teachers is critical. There is an opportunity to leverage this emerging and powerful technology responsibly to tackle some of the big educational challenges related to teaching and learning processes.

What does support for teachers look like?

Critically, we must invest in and collaborate with teachers right from the start. Some examples of how we can set teachers up for success while applying technology in education include:

• Build teachers’ capacity for technology adoption and use. As emerging technologies redefine teaching and learning processes, teacher professional development must adapt and respond to new educational needs by engaging and empowering teachers. These capacities include effectively utilizing digital tools, including AI, integrating pedagogical approaches, supporting blended learning techniques, and strengthening classroom management. Building teachers’ confidence can support quality learning experiences that cater to the diverse profiles and needs of students.
• Support and enable teachers to focus on human-centered skills that cannot be automated. This includes critical and analytical thinking, problem-solving, collaborative and adaptability skills, and other socio-emotional skills.
• Align digital learning platforms with relevant content and sound pedagogical approaches. Using digital tools for formative assessments enables teachers to track student progress in real time and meet the needs of individual learners. Teachers are empowered to concentrate on personalized student support rather than overburdened by extensive manual assessments.
• Increase accountability and transparency by streamlining processes and set standards for system efficiency. Through technology, we can track progress and objectives, share lessons, and course-correct quickly. And by optimizing and automating the processes for teacher management, governments can promote data-driven decision making and ensure greater transparency, including in teacher recruitment, distribution, and capacity development.
• Listen to teacher voices from diverse contexts to define needs and lead learning opportunities. Those closest to the problems should have the largest say on the types of technology best suited to address them. Creating spaces for teachers to share best practices, resources, and pain points puts teachers in a position to drive their own development while highlighting their expertise when it comes to solving the problems they are facing.

As artificial intelligence and other technological innovations speed forward, there is an indisputable need for education systems to adjust in order to prepare young people for a digitalized world.

Teachers must remain at the center of the transformation process of education. With empowered and supported teachers during the integration of digital technology in the classrooms, education systems can achieve the scale and efficiency needed to reach every child with the education they deserve.