World Teachers’ Day is held annually on 5 October to celebrate all teachers around the globe. It commemorates the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, which sets benchmarks regarding the rights and responsibilities of teachers, and standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, and teaching and learning conditions. The Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel was adopted in 1997 to complement the 1966 Recommendation by covering teaching personnel in higher education. World Teachers’ Day has been celebrated since 1994.

It is a day to celebrate how teachers are transforming education but also to reflect on the support they need to fully deploy their talent and vocation, and to rethink the way ahead for the profession globally.
World Teachers’ Day is co-convened in partnership with the International Labour Organization, UNICEF and Education International.

In 2026, the Day marks the 60th anniversary of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers. Six decades on, as the Recommendation is being revised, new challenges have emerged for the profession, from digital technologies and climate change to inclusion, migration and displacement. These pressures affect several dimensions of the status of teachers: their symbolic status, when teaching is not sufficiently recognized or valued; their professional status, shaped by limited autonomy, support or voice in policy-making; and their material status, compromised by salaries, workloads and working environments that do not allow teachers to fully exercise their role.

Under the theme "Standing with teachers: 60 years of protecting the profession, advancing its status and shaping our futures," the 2026 edition will center on reviewing the current challenges related to teacher status and the strategies to address them, calling on society and policy-makers to protect, promote and elevate that status.