Frequent or habitual absence from work, without a good reason; absenteeism does not include occasional absence due to reasons beyond one’s control, such as sickness.

A method by which a teacher’s  job  performance  is evaluated, as part of assessing teaching effectiveness and guiding and managing career progression and professional development.

The reduction of the workforce due to voluntary and involuntary terminations of employment, deaths and employee retirements.

Financial or non-financial compensation related to employment in addition to base salary, such as allowances for housing, transport, health care, insurance, retirement, day care, sick leave or other forms of social protection, funding of CPD, etc

A formal education programme in which a part of the content and instruction is delivered through face-to-face training methods and a part through computer-mediated activities and online media.

Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the 1966 Recommendations concerning the Status of Teachers and the 1997 Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel, charged with monitoring and promoting the implementation of the recommendations.

The process of earning qualifications or credentials and the recognition by the relevant education authority of such achievements that allows a teacher to teach in certain subject areas at a specific educational level.

See School cluster

A written agreement regarding working conditions  and terms of employment concluded between  one  or  more employers or employers’ organizations, on the one hand, and one or more representative organizations of teachers or other education workers or their duly elected representatives, on the other.

All negotiations which take place between one or more employers or employers’organizations, on the one hand, and one or more organizations of teachers or other education workers or their duly elected representatives, on the other, for determining working conditions and terms of employment or for regulating relations between employers and teachers or other education workers.

Teachers recruited  on a temporary,  contractual  basis,  often as a response to difficulties in recruiting sufficient numbers of qualified teachers, or to meet budgetary restraints. They are almost always less well-trained and paid, and have less job security, than permanent or civil service teachers.

The ongoing professional learning process, by which teachers reflect upon, maintain and develop their professional knowledge, skills and practices.  CPD  is both  a right  and  an obligation  of all professions, including teaching, and may include formal, structured and informal, self-directed learning.

The placement or allocation of teachers to positions within an education system and across a region or nation.

The process by which highly skilled, well-trained teachers are replaced by less- or un-skilled teachers with less, minimal or no professional training, resulting in the lowering of educational standards and the status of the profession.

Less favourable treatment explicitly or implicitly based on one or more prohibited grounds, including ethnicity, race, religion, political opinion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, national extraction, social origin (including caste), circumstances of birth or on the grounds of membership in a group or organization.

Education prior to compulsory education, regarded as an education in its own right and an essential part of lifelong learning, not as merely preparation for primary school. Early childhood education is referred to as level 0 on the International Standard Classification of Education.

The Education for All movement is a global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults. Governments, development agencies, civil society and the private sector are working together to reach six EFA goals by 2015.

An approach to education based on the principle that education is a key to promoting the values, behavior and lifestyles necessary for a sustainable future.

A system designed to collect, manage, process and report data about  an  education  system,   including   information  relating to schools, learners, teachers and staff; this information is an important basis for the formulation, management and evaluation of education policies.

The use of electronic educational technology or information communication technologies in learning and teaching.