KIX LAC and ETI connect lessons on teacher training
The KIX LAC Hub and the Empowering Teachers Initiative (ETI) have launched the regional workshop "Teacher professional development at scale: strengthening national and regional initiatives through a teacher empowerment approach." The KIX LAC Hub is an initiative driven by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and led in Latin America and the Caribbean by SUMMA and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). ETI is led by SUMMA and the Foundation for Information Technology Education and Development in the Philippines, under the TPD@Scale Coalition for the Global South and with support from IDRC.
Dante Castillo, director of innovative policy and practice at SUMMA and ETI lead for Latin America and the Caribbean, set out the region's main challenges in teacher training and professional development. The workshop gives countries the tools to review their own teacher training initiatives and identify room for improvement in access, relevance, sustainability, appropriate technologies, and pedagogical support.
Representatives from Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras shared national progress and experiences aimed at strengthening teacher professional development. Among them were training strategies tied to new curricula, the use of evidence to identify actual training needs, wider opportunities through online platforms and the consolidation of sustained professional development programs for teachers. Taken together, the experiences pointed to the value of moving toward training approaches that are more structured, more flexible, and more closely connected to everyday classroom practice.
The session also introduced two open resources developed under the TPD@Scale approach: a self-paced online course on teacher professional development at scale, and an analytical framework for strengthening teacher professional development systems using ICT.
More than a one-off activity, the workshop reflects the purpose behind GPE KIX's work: to strengthen capacities, promote the use of evidence in decision-making, connect experiences across countries, and help scale up innovations that matter to education systems, all on a foundation of regional collaboration. Working in tandem with ETI, this initiative provides countries with tools, evidence, and lessons learned on teacher professional development at scale, in response to regional priorities and with a focus on more inclusive, effective, and sustainable policies and practices.
