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Students should be the protagonists of their learning process. This is the certainty that drives Argentinean teacher and Global Teacher Prize finalist Mariela Guadagnoli, who promotes the project-based learning methodology in her classroom to encourage collaborative spaces among her students and thus develop their problem-solving skills. With this methodology, Mariela's students developed the project "Ecological paving stones", a solution to the frequent flooding in the streets surrounding the school, an initiative that achieved local and national recognition.

Stories of teacher leaders like Mariela, who transform education and impact thousands of students every year, are present throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and demonstrate the enormous creativity and capacity for innovation and leadership that teachers have, even in contexts as difficult as those experienced during the pandemic.

Despite its centrality to the educational process, the data on the state of teaching in the region are worrisome. According to a recent report by Unesco, Unicef and ECLAC, approximately 20% of teachers in the region do not have the required training to practice the profession. This scenario puts at risk not only the achievement of the goals set by the 2030 Agenda to ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education, but also complicates the efforts for education to recover and reinvent itself according to the current challenges.

For this reason, on World Teachers' Day we call on the countries of the region to redouble their efforts to ensure that our teachers have adequate support, independence, professional development opportunities and commensurate salaries. In this way, among other ways, we will be able to move steadily towards the educational transformation that Latin America and the Caribbean need.