No other professionals are disdained in the same way as teachers are right across the globe, the president of Education International, Mary Hatwood Futrell, told last week's ASTI convention in Galway. It was time the public and policymakers gave teachers and the teaching profession the respect and appreciation "they need, deserve, and have earned", she said.

The guest speaker received a rousing reception from the 500 delegates at the Corrib Great Southern Hotel when she called for teachers to be paid the salaries they deserved. She said poor working conditions, poor salaries, lack of respect and appreciation for the work that teachers do - and increasingly unsafe learning environments - were universal reasons why teachers were leaving the profession.

"In forum after forum, whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or the Americas, the issue of the teacher shortage crisis dominates conversations.

"In my own country, the US, we will need 2 million new teachers by the end of this decade, yet we are producing fewer than 150,000 each year, and 20 per cent of those never enter the classroom. Another 20 per cent leave after less than five years of teaching," she said.

Hatwood Futrell, who is dean of the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development, in Washington DC, said that compared to other professions the salaries earned by teachers were at the bottom of the scale.

She said parents and teachers had to work together to improve the quality of education in our communities. "We must establish a sustained dialogue about ways to improve our schools. We can start by coming together to identify issues, and ways we can together resolve them, by respecting each other's opinions as we strive for common ground."