Guidelines for the Design and Effective Use of Teacher Codes of Conduct

To increase the professionalization of teachers and other staff, countries have developed professional codes of conduct in the education sector, in addition to the general statutory rules in force for all members of the public service. These codes are a cornerstone of quality teaching and work towards excellence in education in several ways:

• by building better teaching and learning environments, they can improve the quality of classroom teaching-learning interaction, while helping curb misconduct;
• by promoting ethics, they can make sure that common values are shared by all citizens.

These guidelines have been prepared to:

• guide countries on how to successfully design a code (or review an existing code) to make it into a functional tool that will contribute effectively to the regulation of staff (and more specifically, teachers’ conduct at school level);
•  help countries put in place the appropriate mechanisms to ensure the proper dissemination, application, and monitoring of the code at all levels of the system (including its integration into teachers’ education and professional development).

The guidelines are aimed at:

• national stakeholders (ministries of education, teacher development colleges, and teacher unions)
• local stakeholders (school principals, teachers, pupils, parents, and parents and teachers associations).