Some exciting news from the DBE/VVOB 2026 Teacher Development Colloquium today: the DBE launched its new Online Teacher Development Platform.
Teachers can access targeted courses and microcredentials, build their own learning pathways, and have completed learning linked directly to SACE CPTD points. External providers can also link their training to the platform.
Very exciting.
Of course, we should not expect miracles. Internet access and technology will remain barriers. Some people may game the system for points. Completion does not automatically mean learning, and learning does not automatically translate into classroom practice.
But I think it would be hard to argue that this is not a step up. In many places, subject advisors simply cannot reach every teacher. And even where teachers attend workshops, we often know surprisingly little about how much of the training they actually engaged with. Sometimes even tracking who completed most of the programme is difficult.
So this is potentially more than another online platform. It could change some of the infrastructure of teacher professional development.
The next question is how we support it well. Districts often do not have the ICT support capacity that a system like this will need. Could funders and partners help strengthen that public infrastructure, rather than build yet another parallel programme?
There are so many possibilities. I’m excited to see where the next two days lead us.
No comments:
Post a Comment