Teacher professional development was the topic of an event hosted by VVOB, an Education Finance Network member, on February 23 in Washington D.C. The panel session and networking event were organised in collaboration with the Education Finance Network and other key partners such as the LEGO Foundation, the World Bank and the Center for Global Development, with the purpose to discuss, exchange and build partnerships for quality education initiatives.

The promise and peril of teacher professional development

After an introduction by Inês Charro of the Education Finance Network, David Evans (CGDev) warmed up the audience through an inspiring keynote speech. Bringing together findings from multiple studies, he showed just how important motivated and qualified teachers are for the learning process. After pointing out that effective teacher professional development is both a motivator for teachers and a factor attracting teachers to the profession, he proceeded to explain that in-service teacher professional development can be an immediately available and effective tool to support the quality of education – provided it is done well.

While we cannot always predict if a teacher professional development program is going to succeed in improving learning outcomes, there is evidence around key ingredients for successful programs. The amount of evidence from evaluations of teacher professional development programs has increased during recent years, but for many regions no evaluation data is available and some key areas are still lacking in evidence. This includes knowing how to do successful teacher professional development at scale and what works in lowest income contexts and fragile contexts.

David Evans concluded that despite these gaps, it is clear that effective teacher professional development is a powerful tool to improve learning outcomes. However, it’s easy to get it wrong, and still too often, programs are not effective.

Getting it right by learning from like-minded organisations

This keynote speech set the stage for the panel session during which Aino Anneli from the World Bank and Jef Peeraer and Huong Nguyen Thi Lan from VVOB shared insights emerging from Coach by the World Bank and BLEND by VVOB, projects that are making strides in effective teacher professional development by working collaboratively within government systems. VVOB introduced Blend ON! to help professional development providers create successful blended continuous professional development programmes. It was co-created through a collaborative community of practice of eight organisations that brought together their experience and knowledge around blended teacher professional development. Have a look at the teaser video.

Sharing thoughts and building networks

The keynote and presentations sparked many questions and thoughts and participants continued their conversations during a convivial networking session.

The event was well attended by many key actors that work and support teacher professional development programs around the globe, such as USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Mastercard Foundation, Aga Khan Foundation, UNESCO, Pratham, Plan International, RTI International, Aflatoun, Trevor Noah Foundation, NISSEM and Rotary International, as well as Embassy representatives of the governments of Belgium and Cambodia. It served as a fruitful platform to bring together like-minded organisations and education stakeholders to share knowledge, expertise, and resources, thereby laying foundations for sustainable approaches and partnerships targeted at improving the quality of education.

Watch a recording of the session along with the presentations and pictures on VVOB’s website: How to address the global learning crisis through effective teacher professional development | VVOB