Professional teachers tend to prefer permanent posts in suburban areas where often the opportunities are much greater both for students and teachers. Many of the problems concerning children are made worse by the high ratio of children to teachers in understaffed schools.
The favoured and less favoured nations have as striking disparity in the number of teachers, even without taking into account differences between primary-school teachers' professional training levels. Developing countries have 50 or 60 million more pupils than Europe and North America but approximately the same number of teachers. The primary-school situation, by region, is as follows: Europe and USSR, one teacher for 25 pupils; North America, 1 for 26; Latin America 1 for 32; Asia 1 for 36; Arab States 1 for 38; Africa, 1 for 40.