The Africa Teachers Webinar Series continues with its 12th webinar, part of the fourth set of webinars focused on digital skills and AI, reflecting an ongoing exchange on how to strengthen teaching across the continent.
Organized by UNESCO’s International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA) with regional and global partners, the series highlights how teachers are adapting to digital transformation and the growing role of AI in education.
Webinar #12: Preparing Pre-service Teachers for AI-Enabled and Digital Classrooms in Africa will take place on:
The session will explore how teacher education programmes can better equip future teachers with digital and AI-related competencies—supporting them to adapt pedagogy, use technology effectively, and respond to rapidly evolving classroom environments.
The Africa Teachers Webinar Series continues with its 12th webinar, part of the fourth set of webinars focused on digital skills and AI, reflecting an ongoing exchange on how to strengthen teaching across the continent.
Organized by UNESCO’s International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA) with regional and global partners, the series highlights how teachers are adapting to digital transformation and the growing role of AI in education.
Webinar #12: Preparing Pre-service Teachers for AI-Enabled and Digital Classrooms in Africa will take place on:
The session will explore how teacher education programmes can better equip future teachers with digital and AI-related competencies—supporting them to adapt pedagogy, use technology effectively, and respond to rapidly evolving classroom environments.
This blog has been co-authored by Prof. Sarah Younie, CEO, MESHGuides, and April Williamson, Director of Global Projects, Digital Promise, co-leads of the Teacher Task Force Thematic Group on Digital Education and Artificial Intelligence.
Teachers are at the heart of every education system, but in many parts of the world, they lack access to quality training and professional development. According to UNESCO and the Teacher Task Force, an estimated 44 million new teachers will be needed by 2030 to achieve the SDG 4 targets. Addressing this global teacher shortage requires a holistic approach, including training and accreditation systems that build professionalism and effectively support and develop teachers throughout their careers. Yet in many contexts — particularly those affected by crisis, limited infrastructure, and scarce resources — conventional training models fail to reach those who need them most.
The COVID-19 pandemic further highlighted the urgent need to equip large numbers of teachers with both foundational and 21st-century skills that are critical for lifelong learning and resilient societies. Teachers must be qualified, supported, and motivated — not only to provide quality teaching today, but also to prepare students for inclusive and increasingly digital societies. This is especially urgent in low- and middle-income countries, where scalable, low-cost, and rapidly deployable solutions are needed to meet the need for large-scale, high-quality, and effective training.
In this context, low-tech and mobile approaches — such as messenger-based training — are proving to be both relevant and cost-effective. Designed to function on basic phones with minimal bandwidth, these tools offer flexible, scalable, and accessible learning opportunities that meet teachers where they are. By leveraging tools that are already used by teachers, low-tech solutions can minimize, and even reduce, workload.
A number of members of the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 (Teacher Task Force, or TTF) have been at the forefront of implementing such approaches. The TTF Thematic Group on Digital Education and AI, co-led by MeshGuides and Digital Promise, hosted a webinar, “Low-Tech, High Impact: Training Teachers Where They Are”, to highlight perspectives and lessons learned from two of these scalable, mobile-based teacher training solutions: the Future Teacher Kit and ProFuturo.
The Future Teacher Kit (FTK) is a mobile-based training approach tailored to reach teachers in a range of settings, including remote and crisis-affected areas. On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) developed the Future Teacher Kit in collaboration with UNESCO and more than 1,500 teachers. The webinar highlighted perspectives on FTK implementation and impact from the Ministry of Education of Ecuador and the Jamaica Teaching Council, as well as GIZ, UNICEF and UNESCO.
“We know today that education systems owe teachers – not the other way around.” - Eilean von Lautz-Cauzanet, GIZ
The FTK is an adaptive, scalable professional development solution designed to prepare educators for a rapidly evolving educational landscape by improving access, fostering communities of practice, and supporting education system resilience. It uses low-tech tools with high impact, such as messenger services, to reach teachers in low-connectivity areas. Through ambassador-led, participatory communities of practice, it promotes collaboration, intrinsic motivation, and self-paced learning, while strengthening teacher networks and institutional capacity.
UNICEF joined the FTK partnership in 2024, contributing its strong expertise in digital teacher development. UNICEF has developed the Superstar Teacher Toolbox, a tool to support educators to use mobile messaging for learning, including two practical guides on digital skills and mobile pedagogy. Its content has been integrated into the FTK, leveraging the UNICEF RapidPro platform for text-based delivery. This partnership is enhancing the FTK’s scalability and pedagogical quality.
“The Future Teacher Kit reignited my love for teaching. It reminded me that I could grow, even in a digital world. It wasn't just training—it was transformation.” - FTK Cohort Participant
As a leader in digital teacher training, ProFuturo shared complementary experiences and practical lessons from their work in low-resource contexts. ProFuturo is an education innovation programme based on technology, founded in 2016 by Telefonica Foundation and “La Caixa” Foundation.
Learning and teaching are two essential processes in today’s society. To address them holistically, ProFuturo has developed the Global Framework for Educational Competence in the Digital Era. This framework supports lifelong learning, especially for teachers, and invites the educational community to reflect on the meaning of learning and teaching in the digital age, and on the teacher’s pivotal role in both. Their teacher training approach is based on an ongoing competence cycle that involves:
Through implementing their solutions with 1.8 million teachers in 30 countries, ProFuturo has identified a number of key lessons. Educational change is a cultural and systemic process centered on teachers, making their training essential for improving quality. This focus on teachers ensures high-quality training delivery, while flexibility and preparedness allow effective responses to diverse situations and challenges.
Recognizing limits and managing expectations, alongside sustaining continuous innovation and strong collaboration, allow organizations like ProFuturo to address the complexity of training teachers across extremely diverse contexts.
“Strategic partnerships enable the sharing of resources and expertise, ensuring that the program is well-supported and aligned with global educational initiatives” - Mila Tonarelli, ProFuturo
After the webinar, participants were surveyed to gather perspectives on teacher training strategies and needs in their own contexts. The following common themes emerged:
Based on the discussion, it’s clear that this is a common priority. There is a need for low-tech and mobile teacher training and ongoing professional development across all education systems. This initial webinar and blog are the start of a series of professional conversations in which the Teacher Task Force members dive deeper into the challenges, solutions, and best practices.
Future Teacher Kit
ProFuturo
Hero photo credit: BMZ, GIZ, UNESCO, UNICEF.
This blog is authored by Quentin Wodon, Director of UNESCO's International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA).
Sharing experiences from good practices in teacher professional development and broader teacher policies is a priority shared by many organizations in Africa. In early 2025, five such organizations combined forces to organize a new, open access monthly webinar series – the Africa Teachers Webinar Series (registration is free here). Recordings of the webinars and the PowerPoint presentations used by speakers are made available after the webinars at https://www.iicba.unesco.org/en/webinars-events.
The five organizations co-sponsoring the webinar series are, alphabetically, (1) the Africa Federation of Teacher Regulatory Authorities, (2) the African Union represented by its Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation Department, (3) the European Union through its Regional Teachers Initiative for Africa, (4) the Global Partnership for Education through its Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX), a joint endeavor with the International Development Research Centre, Canada, and finally (5) UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA), whose staff lead the webinar series and work closely with each of the other organizations, including by managing the Africa 19 Hub for KIX with a focus on anglophone African countries.
The webinar series is organized in blocks of three sessions on specific themes, with experts, researchers, and practitioners sharing promising practices, useful resources and frameworks, and practical strategies. In 2025, the first block of three webinars focused on issues related to the continuous professional development (CPD) of teachers in Africa. The second block of three webinar focused on issues related to the new Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2026-2035 adopted by the African Union. The third block again with three webinars focused on education for health and well-being.
Nine webinars were organized in 2025 with a total of about 2,800 participants for the year (including about 300 participants in person for two webinars that were hybrid). After each webinar, a short evaluation survey is sent to participants. As an illustration of results, responses after the first webinar on teacher continuous professional development (CPD) are tabulated in the Figures below. Most participants found that webinar useful to understand the evidence on the situation, best practices, and challenges faced in designing and implementing effective CPD programs. Participants also suggest that the webinar met their expectations. These results are encouraging, and similar findings have been observed for the other webinars organized in 2025.
There are also some areas for improvement. Translation is provided in English, French, and Portuguese for all webinars. Yet most participants come from anglophone countries, and very few are from Portuguese-speaking countries. The countries with high participation rates include Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, Zambia, with Côte d’Ivoire being the only francophone countries appearing as a a top 5 country for the number of participants in some of the webinars. Clearly, additional efforts are needed to better reach francophone and Portuguese stakeholders. On the other hand, there is gender balance among participants, with almost exactly half being men, and half women. There is also a good mix between education officers, teachers, and others. Many participants join all three webinars in any given sub-series, even if some prefer to attend only one or two of the webinars in a sub-series.
Participants also gave us feedback through open-ended questions in the satisfaction surveys. They appreciate practical, localized case studies that help connect theory to classroom realities. This is why each webinar includes a short keynote, a main presentation, and three case studies. Although Zoom sends reminders to those who have registered, participants appreciate more reminders prior to webinars. They also appreciate interactions through Q&As. Some participants suggested adding more young people or even students as speakers. As to topics of interest, many suggestions were made, including peace education, higher education, inclusive education in large classrooms, digital technologies in areas without connectivity, AI-related teaching and learning, ICT integration in teaching and learning, teacher training in marginalized contexts, safe learning environments, ECE curriculum, violence in school, integration of health and well-being into lesson delivery, and school leadership (this list is not exhaustive).
Webinars are typically organized on a Thursday at 3 pm East African Time (GMT+3). In 2026, the first set of three webinars will focus on issues related to the potential of digital skills and AI to improve educational outcomes in Africa. The first webinar on Digitalization and AI in Higher Education: From Strategy to Practice will take place at 3 pm EAT on Thursday, February 26, 2026. The second webinar on Leveraging e-Learning for Teacher Professional Development: Lifelong Learning Opportunities will take place at 3 pm EAT on Thursday, March 26, 2026. The third webinar on Defining and Measuring Digital and AI Competencies: Frameworks for Educators and Institutions will take place at 3 pm EAT on Thursday April 23, 2026. If you have ideas of presenters for the second and third webinars, please let us know at info.iicb@unesco.org as we have not yet finalized the agenda for those two webinars.
The next series of three webinars will focus on education in emergencies, and how to strengthen teacher recruitment, professional development, and retention in such contexts. Key topics will include ensuring that children and youth who are refugees or displaced receive the education they deserve, while also recognizing the qualifications of teachers who may themselves be refugees and ensuring that teacher professional development is adapted to emergency contexts. Again, if you have ideas for presenters, do not hesitate to send us an email at info.iicba@unesco.org. And if you are interested in our webinar series, please register for future webinars at https://www.iicba.unesco.org/en/webinars-events. Together, let’s draw inspiration from the insights shared at the webinars and apply our knowledge to strengthen teaching and learning in Africa and beyond!
Image credit: UNESCO/Emily Pinna
In the build-up to the Global Disability Summit 2025 to be held on 2-3 April in Germany, the Inclusion and Equity in Teacher Policies and Practices Thematic Group are delighted to invite you to attend three knowledge exchange learning sessions on policies and practices on teachers with disabilities.
This is the last of three learning sessions. The session will be interactive and participatory. Three members will make short presentations on the topic and participants will be invited to share their experience, evidence and learning in breakout rooms. The session will be facilitated in English; however, we will welcome if there any volunteers who would like to facilitate breakout sessions in different languages. We will use Team's chat function which allows to translate the conversation in different languages.
In this session, we are going to focus our discussion on policies and practices on continuing professional development opportunities and career paths for teachers with disabilities.
As an output of this session, we will produce a knowledge brief.
Please register here.
Carlos Vargas, Head of the Teacher Task Force Secretariat, will participate in the webinar "Amplifying Teachers' Voices," organized by the Jacobs Foundation on 18 November at 3:00 pm CET.
Hosted by Nina Alonso, an international educational researcher specializing in equal access to learning and culture, this teacher-led, global event will spotlight teachers' stories, elevate the teaching profession’s status, and foster dialogue between educators and key stakeholders in teacher development.
The event will also introduce the new Teachers' Voices online repository—a resource of teacher stories and educational research designed to support teachers and educational stakeholders worldwide.
For further information and to register, please click here.
The inaugural Teacher Task Force and UNESCO Global Report on Teachers will be presented in Nottingham, U.K., on 21 June at a special event organized in cooperation with the United Kingdom Forum for International Education and Training (UKFIET).
The report, titled Addressing teacher shortages and transforming the profession, was officially launched at the 14th Policy Dialogue Forum in Johannesburg on 26 February. This Nottingham event aims to share the findings of the report and provide an opportunity to foster dialogue, exchange ideas, and generate actionable strategies to empower decisions-makers and teachers to improve education outcomes globally, in the United Kingdom and in Commonwealth countries as well as in countries where UKFIET and its partners operate.
An in-depth presentation will unveil the key findings of the report, including the need for an additional 44 million primary and secondary teachers by 2030 to meet SDG 4 targets. This session will discuss the root causes of teacher shortages, such as inadequate salaries, challenging working conditions, and insufficient professional support, as well as successful mitigation strategies employed by various countries.
Following the report presentation, four panel discussions will be held, focusing on key themes related to the report's findings:
The presentation of the report will be live streamed, the panel discussions will be in person in Nottingham.
AGENDA
Panelists will include key education stakeholders and representatives from partner organizations.
Useful links: