At least two additional million teachers will be needed to meet the internationally agreed goal of universal primary education by 2015, according to fresh figures published Tuesday by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on the eve of the World Teachers' Day.

UNESCO statistics showed that Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for more than half the demand, the worst supplied region with educator resources, however, some advanced countries including the United States, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Sweden are facing similar shortage.

Insufficient staffing to ensure universal primary education by 2015 affects 112 countries, the report said, detailing the gap in Sub-Saharan Africa at over 1.1 million, 243,000 teachers in Arab states, 292,000 in south and west Asia and 155,000 in north America and western Europe, while the other regions account the remaining number of teachers in need.

Given the number of teachers leaving the professions for various personal reasons, UNESCO pointed out that "to meet the total shortage, 6.1 million teachers will be needed between 2009 and 2015."

"If we want to give equal opportunities to our daughters and sons to realize their full potential and claim their rights, we must devise policies and strategies that attract and motivate capable women and men to teach, while also enabling them to create gender-equal learning environments," said a message co-signed by UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, and the heads of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), International Labor Organization (ILO), and Education International (EI), the international federation of education trade unions.

Celebrated since 1994, World Teachers' Day commemorates the anniversary of the 1966 signing of the UNESCO/ILO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers with its guidelines concerning educational policies, curricula, training, employment, work conditions and teachers participation in decision-making.

World Teachers' Day 2011 is themed on "Teachers for gender equality" in the context that in primary schools across the world women account for 62 percent of teachers worldwide.