Primary education is the only formal education many children receive and yet in some poor countries there simply aren't enough properly trained teachers for all the children who need them. Over 115 million children of primary school age are not enrolled in school. Five years of schooling is the minimum required for basic literacy but one-third of those enrolled fail to even get this far.

As a volunteer with VSO, you can help by training teachers for these children. You will live and work alongside local people. Every day you will help them to change their lives forever. And as a teacher and a person you may never be the same again.

Last autumn, VSO encouraged primary teachers to share their teaching skills for a year in order to help children in the world's poorest countries get the education they desperately need. Now we want you to do the same...

Read: David Clamp, VSO Gambia, talks about why your help is so desperately needed...

Next: Roles & opportunities

* A VSO teaching placement for one year includes an additional three-month in-country training programme.