Primary school teaching is the single most important profession in the world. Teachers  pass on knowledge and values to children, prepare them for further education and for working life and are main contributors to good education. This most important profession however does not get the recognition it deserves. In the developed world, young people don’t want to become a primary school teacher anymore. In most developing countries the profession does not attract qualified and ambitious people because it is poorly remunerated. Gone are the days that a primary school teacher was a highly respected person. To attain the goal of universal and good primary school education, teaching has to become an attractive profession again. 

Teachers are one of the main pillars of a sound and progressive society. They bear the weight and responsibility of teaching, and, apart from parents, are the main source of knowledge and values for children. 

For a child between 6 and 12, there are basically three options: get no primary education, get low quality primary education or get good quality primary education.  In spite of our world being immensely rich, the majority of children have to settle for option 1 or 2.  At this very moment, over a hundred million children get no primary education at all. And over 500 million of them get it but the quality is low: they have little or no books, their class-room is poorly equipped or simply doesn’t exist, or they have a teacher whose level of knowledge hardly surpasses that of a 6^th grader or who is not motivated because she earns less than her neighbor who cleans the house of the local landlord.

The universally subscribed goal that “by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality" (Declaration of The World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal in  2000) can only be achieved if children can have access to motivated and knowledgeable teachers. They are the resource by excellence. The books are important, the pencil and the blackboard are important and so are the chairs to sit on, but if there is no motivated teacher in front of the chairs, if there is no teacher to write on the blackboard and to teach reading, math and how to pick up knowledge and values, the goal will never be achieved.