Covid-19 has demonstrated that teachers are key workers and should receive the pay, conditions and respect that they “deserve”, the director general of the World Health Organisation has said.

In a message for World Teachers’ Day, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic had made it clear who society’s essential workers are: education and health workers.

He said: “The pandemic has taught us who society’s essential workers are: health workers [...] teachers, and education workers, who are the guardians of our most precious investment: the children, who are the promise of our collective future. 

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“We owe teachers the conditions, the resources, the pay, the training, the support and the respect they deserve.”

Addressing teachers, he said: “WHO sees teachers as playing an irreplaceable role in children’s lives, first in their physical, mental and social health and then in their capacity to contribute to society.

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“You are on the frontlines of the response to ensure that learning continues for nearly 1.5 billion students.”

He added that the international community recognises the importance of safeguarding the right to education for all children, and he specified that this means “taking all the measures possible to protect both students and teachers against the risk of being infected by the virus that causes Covid-19.”

He also commented on the role of schools in society during the Covid crisis, arguing that they can promote important safety behaviours, provide guidance to children and families and prevent the spread of misinformation.

He said: “Reopening schools enables this supportive intervention to be renewed.

“We hope a positive outcome of this terrible virus will be to encourage people to study to become health workers and teachers.”

Annie Sparrow, special adviser to the WHO director general, said that the impact of school closures on the education progress and mental and physical health of children around the world was a “man-made”, catastrophic result of the Covid crisis. 

She said: “What we have done is created enormous harm by shutting down schools.

“Now we can see how absolutely essential teachers and schools are.

“Education, on paper, is the third most important determinant of health, but in reality it’s the single most important one - because the other ones are income and whether you have a job. How do you achieve that? With education.

“When the vaccine comes, we need to protect our teachers because they are part of the frontline.”

She added that teachers are primarily getting infected in the community, not at school.