If Teacher Professional Development Isn’t Accessible, Are We Making Progress?
Accessible professional development must be the cornerstone of South Africa’s education reform.
As the world prepares for the upcoming G20 Summit, attention turns to the preparatory work completed by South Africa through the G20 Education Working Group (EdWG) earlier this year. Under the theme “Educational Professionals for Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability”, the EdWG developed recommendations on three core priorities: quality foundational learning, mutual recognition of qualifications, and education professional development for a changing world. For the Jakes Gerwel Fellowship (JGF), a non-profit organisation that supports novice teachers, the next critical step is ensuring that the EdWG’s recommendations are not only acknowledged at the Summit but actively considered and carried forward. The real test of this agenda will be whether professional development becomes accessible to every teacher, not just a committed or well-resourced few.
South Africa’s teacher workforce is already under acute pressure. Nearly half of publicly employed teachers are 50 years or older, signalling a looming retirement wave in the next decade. At the same time, growing evidence points to high levels of burnout and attrition, with many teachers considering leaving the profession due to overwhelming workloads, administrative burdens, school-based violence and limited psychosocial support. The shortage is felt most sharply in under-resourced schools and in key subjects.
For JGF, this is not only a pipeline problem, it is a professional identity and wellbeing problem. In this context, accessible, high-quality professional development becomes a critical safeguard for the profession itself. When teachers can routinely participate in meaningful learning opportunities, they are more likely to stay, grow and lead in their classrooms and communities.
Around the world, policymakers and education leaders increasingly agree that quality learning begins with quality teaching. Yet for many South African teachers, professional development is still something promised but seldom within reach, constrained by time, distance, data costs, workload, and uneven institutional support. If professional development is not accessible, we cannot credibly claim to be making progress.
JGF believes that accessible, ongoing professional development must be the cornerstone of South Africa’s education reform and a key lever for keeping great teachers in the system. Professional learning should be as routine as teaching itself: embedded in the school day, supported by peers, and available to every teacher, regardless of geography or school context.
“Professional learning cannot remain an occasional intervention,” says Banele Lukhele, Chief Executive Officer of JGF. “It must be continuous, collaborative, and inclusive. When teachers can participate in structured professional learning communities, they are building solidarity, agency, and professional identity.” Lukhele describes professional learning communities (PLCs) as the connective tissue of a healthy education system. Within these collaborative spaces, teachers exchange ideas, critique practice, and mentor one another across experience levels and contexts. “PLCs provide a one-to-many model of development,” she explains. “When a teacher gains insight through professional development programmes and shares it within a PLC, the effect multiplies. It extends professional learning well beyond institutional boundaries.”
Accessibility remains the all-important missing link. Many teachers, particularly in rural or under-resourced schools, lack the time, infrastructure, or institutional support to participate in ongoing professional learning. Lukhele argues that without tackling this gap, efforts to elevate teaching standards risk remaining theoretical. “The conversation cannot stop at saying professional development is important,” Lukhele asserts. “It must confront how accessible it is, and what systemic changes are needed to normalise it across all schools.”
Digital innovation, she adds, can be part of the solution if used wisely. Low-cost tools can relieve workload pressures through simplified assessment design, adaptive planning, and differentiated support. They can also facilitate asynchronous peer engagement, allowing teachers to collaborate despite geographic and time constraints. “Technology should not replace human connection,” says Lukhele, “but it can extend it, ensuring that no teacher is left out of the learning ecosystem because of where they work or the resources they have.”
JGF is also calling for the establishment of a shared framework to measure incremental progress in professional development. Such a framework, aligned with international benchmarks like the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), would bring coherence and accountability to South Africa’s teacher development agenda. “We need a common understanding of what improvement looks like, how to track it, and how to adjust along the way,” Lukhele explains. “Without measurable progress, even the most well-intentioned reforms can lose momentum.”
At a time when reports of teacher burnout and attrition are mounting, JGF argues that professional learning is an act of preservation. Strengthening teachers’ capacity, confidence, and community is key to addressing South Africa’s chronic teacher shortage and safeguarding classroom quality. Accessible professional learning, says Lukhele, “keeps great teachers in classrooms, because they feel supported and valued.”
The Fellowship envisions an education system where continuous professional growth is not contingent on funding cycles, geography, or individual initiative but is structurally guaranteed through collaboration between government, unions, NGOs, and donors. Lukhele notes that partnerships with the Department of Basic Education and provincial departments can help embed such models sustainably. “We need advocacy, resource-sharing, and frameworks that enable quality at scale,” she says. “When we get that right, professional learning becomes part of our educational DNA.”
As global leaders gather at the G20 Summit, South Africa has an opportunity to demonstrate how preparatory EdWG work can translate into practical reform. The recommendations are already on record; what is needed now is the will to embed them into policy and practice. Accessibility, collaboration, and courage must guide the next phase of education reform. Teachers are the architects of this transformation. And, if empowered to learn continuously, they will be the ones who sustain it.