The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) on Wednesday launched its 2021 annual week celebration in Sunyani.

The event, held outside the Greater-Accra Region for the first time since 1994, was organised to precede the national Teachers' Day durbar observed as part of the International Teachers' Day (ITD) on October 5 every year.

It aims at sensitising members of the Association to prepare themselves to celebrate the ITD instituted to recognise the teachers' immense contributions to the development of their respective countries.

In an address, Mr Thomas Tanko Musah, the General Secretary of GNAT, explained the celebration was being held outside Accra since the last 27 years to among others emphasise the nationalistic nature of GNAT.

He said as a nation, always organising national events in Accra was not the best practise for public interest, because that denied Ghanaians outside Accra the feel of inclusion and worked against the national heritage of one people with a common destiny.

Speaking on the theme "Teachers Wanted: Reclaiming Teaching and Learning for Human-centred Recovery", Ms. Phillipa Larsen, the National President of GNAT, said more people were needed to join the teaching profession because the global figure for number of teachers "is inadequate".

She said statistics had shown globally there would be a shortage of more than 25.8 million teachers to provide every child with a primary education by 2030.

Ms Larsen added since the last decade, there had been the struggle with shortage of teachers required to ensure everyone could have quality education worldwide.

The launch ended with a presentation of school items to 50 needy pupils selected from two deprived communities in the Bono and Ahafo regions.

The Association would do another presentation of 50 dual-desks and teachers' tables and chairs to a D/A Primary School at Old Nkomi, an Island community in the Sene East District of Bono East Region.