CCfE member organisation the Council for Education in the Commonwealth (CEC) held their 2022 Annual Gladwyn Lecture on 29th November 2022 in the UK Houses of Parliament. It was given by Betty Abeng, Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Education Trust (CET). During her lecture, she stressed that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a comprehensive and challenging framework for the nations and citizens of the world to tackle poverty. With a shared commitment and a collective effort, the Commonwealth and all Commonwealth accredited organisations have a vital role to play in taking action and helping deliver the goals over the next 8 years. This is an edited version of her Lecture. 

Gladwyn Lecture speaker Betty Abeng, CEO of the Commonwealth Education Trust, with The Lord Leong CBE, Chair of CEC (right) 

2022 Annual Gladwyn Lecture – 29th November 2022

How can we leverage technology to support, upskill and energise the most important resource, teachers?

I am delighted to speak to you about a topic that is of huge importance and that also always sits close to my heart. I will be sharing my own, lived experience of the global challenge of providing quality education, and the critical role low-tech, innovative and context-appropriate solutions play in enabling teachers and educational stakeholders to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 – Education.

The Commonwealth, and all Commonwealth accredited organisations, have a vital role to play if we are going to help deliver the goals. By the Commonwealth, I mean all parts coming together – the institutions, the Commonwealth itself, governments and civil society. 2.5 billion people live in Commonwealth Countries, making up a third of the world’s population, and of course most of them are under the age of 30 and the numbers are increasing. When watching the news and listening to stories about the growing numbers of young men and women who are risking their lives, and those of their children, crossing the Sahara and then the Mediterranean, I often wonder whether consideration is given to access to a good education or a lack thereof as a factor – maybe encountering a transformative teacher might have changed the minds and the fate for some of them.

The Sustainable Development Goals

In 2020, during a time of great upheaval and peril, the United Nations marked its 75th anniversary in an era in which strong multi-lateral institutions were perhaps needed more than ever before. At this moment, we are not only recovering from the effects of COVID-19, but there is also a war which makes the challenge of delivering on the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the promises to future generations, even more arduous.

Seven years ago in New York, the United Nations adopted Agenda 2030 – a plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity. The SDGs provide a comprehensive and challenging framework for the nations and citizens of the world to tackle poverty, climate change and injustice. There are 17 goals with 169 targets and 231 indicators which makes it a huge, complex, and daunting agenda and I know that the sheer scale, detail and ambition of Agenda 2030 might put people off. However, I am confident that with a shared commitment and a collective effort we can make the next 8 years a time when we take accelerated action to deliver the global goals.

I’m going to focus on just two of the SDGs: Goal 4 on Education and Goal 17 on the multi stakeholder Partnerships needed to achieve the goals.

SDG4: Context, Challenges, and Opportunities

The ambition of SDG 4 is to ensure all children receive a quality education by 2030. Teachers, trainers, and other education personnel are generally considered the single most influential variable in an education system for achieving learning outcomes. Therefore achievement of SDG 4, and the transformation of education, will depend heavily on teachers and education personnel. They need to be empowered, adequately recruited, well-trained, professionally qualified, motivated and supported within well-resourced, efficient and effectively governed systems.

During the September 2022 UN Transforming Education Summit, Thematic Action Track 3 (Teachers, Teaching and the Teaching Profession) sought commitments and action to create such an education workforce in a manner that is sustainable and achievable. It also states that, currently, education systems are confronted by four major challenges related to the education workforce:

1. Personnel shortages.
2. Difficulties in ensuring adequate qualifications.
3. Skills and professional development needs of teaching personnel.
4. The low status and working conditions, and lack of opportunities to develop teacher leadership, autonomy, and innovation.

In 2016, it was estimated that the world education system needed an additional 69 million teachers globally to meet SDG 4 and to achieve universal basic education by 2030: 24.4 and 44.4 million teachers respectively in primary and secondary education. Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia account for over 76% of the need for new teachers in developing countries. Without enough teachers, classrooms are overcrowded, teachers are overworked and demotivated, and the quality of teaching is inadequate to enable all learners, especially the most vulnerable, to achieve desired learning outcomes. Inequitable deployment and distribution of teachers is also a major challenge that impacts shortages in rural and hard-to-reach locations.

While the overall number of teachers needed has decreased as we approach the target year of 2030, it is estimated that Sub-Saharan Africa will still need to recruit an additional 15 million teachers. Serious teacher shortages are faced by 70% of African countries for primary education and 90% of countries for secondary education. This has lead to the continent being home to the most overcrowded classes, and hence the most overburdened teachers. Teacher working conditions and remuneration also deter youth from entering the profession and in-service teachers from remaining in it. Teacher wages remain comparatively low in many countries, and in crisis-affected areas, teachers are often paid late or not at all.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers in many countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (1 in 3) and Southern Asia (1 in 4), lacked the minimum required qualifications and training. Changes brought forth by the pandemic, including widespread digitalisation and increasing inequality, have further underscored the need to transform teaching and to better train and support education personnel. This transformation is needed so that in collaboration with parents, communities and other social service sectors, learning and teaching can be adapted to a variety of situations and challenges, such as climate change, displacement and conflict.

Learning Poverty and the Work of the Commonwealth Education Trust

According to the World Bank, learning poverty affects almost 250 million children around the world, stifling their life chances. It is estimated that up to 80% of children in low-income countries are unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of ten. This low standard of education is a multifaceted issue, with many challenges contributing to limited learning and life opportunities for an estimated 800 million children by 2030 (World Economic Forum 2018). Studies by the World Bank stress that the lack of training and support for teachers plays a significant role in these poor learning outcomes, identifying a clear need for targeted professional development support. ‘Teachers matter more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling’ (Rand, 2019), yet in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) they may rarely receive guidance or support to ensure they feel motivated, valued and, crucially, keep developing their practice throughout their career.

The Commonwealth Education Trust is a leading institution for the promotion of educational resources in lower income Commonwealth countries. We are committed to investing in teachers, the only consistent resource in every classroom. Our impact model is based on 4 core pillars:

WE BUILD
Our digital Teach2030 programme consists of bite-sized and low data courses that are both scalable and contextualised for teachers in low- and middle-income settings.

WE ADVISE
We work closely with local governments, international agencies and other organisations, to bring sustainable digital TPD to schools and teachers in low- and middle-income settings.

WE WORK TOGETHER
We create open and collaborative partnerships: connecting teachers, pooling knowledge and sharing resources. We aim to deliver contextualised, digital TPD materials to teachers.

WE ELEVATE
Through our global community of teachers, we celebrate their successes and empower them to be part of the process of designing innovative solutions to help improve their teaching.

Schools cannot exist without teachers, yet they are often the last to receive support or investment in their classroom practice, resulting in poor learning outcomes for 80% of children in low-income countries.

CET’s Teach2030 Innovation

Today, CET’s modern and innovative Teach2030 online platform reaches teachers in the most remote areas across the world. It provides bite-sized, high-quality digital learning courses contextualised for their challenging setting. By providing engaging courses that include sound pedagogy, evidence-based strategies and activities, we facilitate regular access to quality professional development. By improving teacher performance, Teach2030 has helped improve the lives of thousands of children, supporting the economic survival of underserved communities who are at the epicentre of the current and worsening global education crisis.

We use a very simple platform that teachers can log on to. Our platform is web-based, rather than in an app, to keep costs low and ensure accessibility across a range of devices and minimise technical challenges. A single course with compressed images and targeted videos uses less than 50MB. Through the web link teachers can browse our course offerings and enter the self-paced courses. Courses can be accessed on any digital device for a meaningful learning experience – including a smartphone, which is the digital resource owned by many teachers, even those working in poorly resourced settings.

All our courses and curriculum are mapped to the Cambridge Teacher Standards, which we used to align our original MOOC courses as well. A total of eight course topics are offered, from “What makes a great teacher,” to “Classroom management,” to “Effective assessment.” Each topic includes four micro-courses and is divided into two sections. The first part, which is free, contains learning objectives, several short animated videos, and practical tasks for teachers to test out in their classrooms. In part two, the course includes additional content, an assessment, and a downloadable certificate. This portion can vary from free to a few dollars in cost, depending on whether it is individual teachers accessing the content or teachers connected to a specific partnership.

As an example, one of our initial courses is called “Fresh Thinking in Your Classroom.” In this course, we hope to help teachers to start thinking differently about their classroom. One specific requirement is for teachers to record a small video of themselves teaching and then watch the recording back. We have seen some incredible transformations amongst teachers after they watch themselves and notice some of the things they might not have thought about otherwise.

We release new content based on the interests and needs of our community. We hold interviews and calls with teachers to determine what would best serve their needs.

Over the last year, due to the pandemic, we have had to pivot, based on feedback from teachers about accessibility concerns, as many were using their mobile devices to view the content. Based on those conversations, we developed a new course outside of the curriculum plan called “Becoming a Digital Learner Using a Smartphone” to help our teachers develop and strengthen their digital literacy skills.

Teach2030’s flexibility ensures it can be used to meet the needs of both an individual teacher or a school. Through partnerships with in-country organisations (governments and NGOs), the programme is implemented by those working directly with schools and teachers themselves. Our current partnership model helps build our partners’ capacity and further expand our teacher training efforts.

There are three key roles: facilitator, head teacher, and coach, which form a triangle of support. The facilitator works at the government or organisation level, undergoes training on the programme, their role, and how they can support schools, and then they are tasked with engaging schools within their province or district. At each of those schools, the head teachers go through their own training, and then identify and appoint coaches within their school. They also ensure that professional development is incorporated into the weekly schedule. Coaches are enthusiastic teachers who help with the facilitation of the course, such as making sure everyone is coming to the training and helping to troubleshoot.

Over time, we realised that some coaches and schools found it challenging to break up the course across a certain number of weeks. So we are working on creating session plans for them, along with additional materials, and observation forms. We are also conducting baseline surveys and impact assessments to continue improving our work.

Teach2030’s growth continues, with more than 10,000 teachers from over 40 countries accessing our courses in 2020 alone, and nearly 50% from sub-Saharan Africa. Course registration surveys show that many users come via word of mouth and confirm the desire and need of teachers in lower-income countries to develop their own practice. This is often as a result of the lack of provision of regular, quality and contextualised CPD in their schools. We believe in the ‘little and often’ approach to CPD by bringing training to the teachers. Sustained access to relevant CPD materials results in those small changes to teaching practice that can have a profound effect on learning outcomes.

Feedback from our users shows that 89% say courses are engaging and relevant to them and their setting. During the pandemic, we saw a large increase in users, and interest continues to grow. Moving forward, our focus is on continuing to build communities through our work, as well as improving the sequencing of the platform so that teachers can follow a clear path between different courses.

Global Recognition of Teach 2030 for Innovation

Teach2030 was selected by Teachers for a Changing World as one of the ten most innovatory, scalable and impactful Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programmes. This is a global crowdsourcing initiative, run in collaboration with HundrED, UNESCO and the World Bank, that identifies programmes that utilise low- and high-tech solutions to train teachers and pedagogical leaders. Over 400 TPD programmes from 80 countries were identified and reviewed.

We were also a proud recipient of the 2021 Commonwealth Secretary General’s Award for Innovation.

SDG 17: Partnership for the Goals and innovation

The achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals and Teachers’ capacity for innovation is one of the keys to building resilient education systems. This is because teachers are best placed to assess the conditions of their own classrooms and communities. Governments therefore need to promote the leadership of teachers to generate meaningful transformations.

Experimentation and adaptation must take place within clear policy frameworks. Therefore, governments, teacher education institutions and other actors must balance structure and flexibility to foster both bottom-up (grassroots) and top-down (system-wide) innovations. It also requires different sectors and actors working together in an integrated manner by pooling financial resources, knowledge and expertise. In a development era with 17 intertwined Sustainable Development Goals and 169 associated targets as a blue-print for achieving the sustainable Future We Want, cross-sectorial and innovative multi-stakeholder partnerships will play a crucial role for getting us to where we need to be by the year 2030.

This year, the theme for Commonwealth Day 2022 centred around the theme for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) – ‘Delivering a Common Future’. It has highlighted how the 56 member countries in the Commonwealth family are ‘innovating, connecting and transforming’ to help achieve goals like fighting climate change, promoting good governance and boosting trade. Equally important is the collaboration and innovation that will be vital if we are going to deliver SDG 4.

Funding of education as a public good is vital and needs to be supported by everyone who recognises teaching as a collaborative endeavour. The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) has set out ambitious goals to raise 5 billion U.S. dollars to invest in education systems in countries that are home to around a billion children and young people. Local governments and the private sector also have very important roles to play to ensure that the vision of high-quality education for all is achieved. In June of last year, I had the privilege of attending The Global Education Financing Summit, co-hosted by two Commonwealth leaders, President Kenyatta of Kenya and Prime Minister Johnson of the United Kingdom.

Now more than ever we need the spirit of cooperation to learn from each other about what works best. Commonwealth countries must also work together to build education systems that are resilient enough to withstand future pandemics and other shocks. In October 2022 the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) Triennale was hosted in Mauritius, under the theme: ‘Reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on Africa’s educational systems, and how to build resilience to sustain the development of skills for the continent and beyond’. The Commonwealth side event, hosted by the Kenyan Ministry of Education in partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat, focused on ways to strengthen synergies between the outcomes of the 21st Commonwealth Conference of Education Ministers (21CCEM, Nairobi April 2022) and the ADEA Triennale.

Our Partnerships

The CET recently secured a partnership with the Commonwealth of Learning (COL). COL has sought to foster innovation during the challenging circumstances of 2020 with its focus on distance learning both in schools and in further and higher education. The Seychelles Ministry of Education has asked us to review their teacher competency framework. We also recently worked with the Princes Trust International in delivering some of our courses to teachers in Jamaica and in Trinidad and Tobago. We are also pleased to be working with Generation Global which is part of the Tony Blair Institute for Global change.

Other partnerships created in the last year include the delivery of Teach2030 to TVET teachers in Liberia with UNIDO; a pilot with the Teaching Council of Zambia to provide free access to Teach2030 for teachers in two districts; and reaching teachers in Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa through our collaboration with the NGO Warwick in Africa.

As an organisation that is innovating we need to secure more funding support. This will help us to provide more TPD for more teachers and therefore accelerate progress toward achieving SDG 4 and transforming education. We also need funding to remain sustainable.

A Personal Reflection

Finally, allow me to offer a personal reflection. I grew up in Cameroon. My mother became a teacher, and my father joined the police force. After serving as a police officer, and having five mouths to feed, my father took a bold step to study his GCSEs through correspondence courses, via what was then called the Rapid Results College in the UK. He then sought admission at the University of New Hampshire, resigned as a police officer and took a gamble at getting his first degree in the USA. After a year, my mother joined him, and both would eventually obtain their degrees and return to Cameroon to serve the country they loved.

I have obviously benefitted from their ambition and, although it was challenging studying in a low- and middle-income country, the fact that I am standing here is a testament to the transformative power of education, and of the teachers I have encountered.

As I conclude my lecture on the importance of investing in teachers, and bearing in mind how it might benefit the communities we serve, I would like to pay a special tribute to one teacher who impacted my life. In my opinion he mirrors the honour, the values and commitments that led Lord Gladwyn into a life of public service. That is my secondary school teacher, Mr Bodylawson.

Mr Bodylawson, my father, and I held a secret, which is now obviously no longer secret because you are about to find out! My father had handed me my school fees which I foolishly squandered on campus. One fine day while in Biology class the Bursar came and informed me that the Principal wanted to see me. I can assure you that it was a long walk. I admitted that there was little left of the money and profoundly apologised to both my dad and the Principal, and prayed my father would not share it with my mum.

I was sure that event would be a defining moment in my life. I was about to go down in my family’s history (in addition to being a middle child) as the one who didn’t pay in her school fees! Over the next three years, I would work hard and try to stay out of trouble and where possible away from Mr Bodylawson’s gaze. I never became a top student, but my grades did somewhat improve. On Graduation Day, the most prestigious award is the Principal’s Award for Most Outstanding 6th Form Student. Usually, the person who received it also had earned the grades to go with it. So naturally, when my name was read out, I stared at the podium in utter disbelief!

One of the ways our courses seek to improve learning outcomes is by making sure that teachers provide effective feedback which doesn’t discourage the students but encourages creative thinking and better learning.

Technology can help support teachers remotely, but it certainly won’t be enough on its own. Rather, it is a tool that policymakers can use under the right conditions to enhance support to teachers. It is vital to acknowledge that the 80 million teachers world-wide cannot be expected to be superheroes: we must build an education-supportive environment where the work of teachers is amplified outside the educational institution.

Thank you all.

Betty Abeng is the Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Education Trust (CET). She has had a varied career working in the not-for-profit sector and, prior to her appointment as CEO, served on the board as a trustee of the CET. Having experienced the issue of learning poverty at first hand, and knowing that EdTech has became a powerful learning tool, she now works alongside a small team at CET to help combat Learning Poverty, and improve learning outcomes, for those living in some of the most underserved parts of the world.

The Commonwealth Education Trust is a well-established, leading charity whose purpose is to advance education across the Commonwealth. Its primary focus is on supporting teacher development, particularly in areas with the lowest levels of quality provision. Its work has impacted more than one million students and teachers across the globe. It was formerly known as the Commonwealth Institute.

To learn more about the Commonwealth Education Trust and how you can support their work , please visit https://commonwealtheducationtrust.org/ and https://teach2030.com/.

The Annual Gladwyn Lecture is organised by the Council for Education in the Commonwealth in honour of its former Patron, Lord Gladwyn, a distinguished diplomat and parliamentarian. The Lecture focuses on an educational topic of relevance to the Commonwealth, and is delivered by an eminent expert.