Teacher training

‘It is widely recognised that the quality of learning depends to a great extent on the quality of the teachers’ (Best, Tournier and Chimier, 2018: 3). This factor is even more significant in schools with underprivileged children (Nye et al., 2004 cited by Best, Tournier and Chimier, 2018). Sufficiently preparing teachers for their job is a key factor to ensure quality learning, inclusion, and equity in schools.

Promising policy options

Sector-wide strategies

To build the basis for an equitable and inclusive school environment, where teachers will deploy the knowledge and skills learned throughout their training on inclusive education, Ministries of Education should:

• ensure there is a common understanding among all relevant stakeholders of the concept of inclusive education (Ainscow, 2005) (for more information consult Policy page Equity and inclusion in policies and legal frameworks);
• conduct general awareness-raising campaigns on the importance of inclusive education; and
• provide training opportunities on essential aspects of inclusive education to relevant stakeholders (e.g. school leaders and staff, members of the School Management Committees SMC, etc.) (IDDC, 2013).

Ministries of Education (MoE) should create a comprehensive teacher training plan. ‘Teachers’ professional development must be systematically planned, supported, funded and researched to guarantee the effectiveness of this process’ (Villegas-Reimers, 2003: 141).  

MoE’s should base the plan on the country’s current situation by asking:

• How many teachers are needed in the education system?
• How many of them have received training on inclusive education?
• How many should be trained?

It is important to recognize which are the different options available for pre- and in-service teacher training as well as their geographic coverage. Evaluate whether more training opportunities are needed or if existing ones can be reorganized to ensure efficient geographic coverage. Get support from local stakeholders, and assign them the responsibility of tracking and publicizing available teacher training opportunities (UNESCO Bangkok, 2009). Throughout the process it is key to ensure that ‘children from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds have access to trained teachers with skills to improve their learning’ (Akyeampong, 2022: 80).

MoE’s should also guarantee minimum national professional standards by developing a clear, coherent and concise framework at a national level, specifying the common body of knowledge and skills on inclusive education which must be mastered by all entrants to the teaching profession (UNESCO, 2018; Darling-Hammond, 2014; ET2020 Working Group on Schools Policy, 2015). That framework should be used to guide pre-service training and assessments, ongoing professional development and career advancement, in-service evaluations, as well as teacher certification.

Adapt teachers’ pre-service training to enhance inclusive education

Teacher training (and the curricula) must be redesigned or adapted so that teachers acquire the necessary skills to respond to the needs of all children, particularly marginalised children, and narrow learning gaps (Akyeampong, 2022). Initial training must address specific challenges that teachers will encounter throughout their profession (Best, Tournier and Chimier, 2018). Thoughtful investment should be geared towards equipping teachers to teach in challenging circumstances (IIEP-UNESCO, 2018).

Teacher training’s reform should be data-driven. For instance, insights from students’ assessments and in-class observations should be mobilized to determine pressing challenges and provide appropriate responses through the training and its corresponding curriculum (EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2015).

The participation of knowledgeable and experienced representatives of marginalised populations in the development of teacher training content should be promoted. Teacher Training Institutions and its staff should be gender-balanced and representative. Which is why, when feasible, representatives of marginalised populations should be supported to become teacher trainers (e.g. include persons with disabilities, ethnic and religious minorities, women, LGBTQI population, etc.).

Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) and/or Teacher Training Institutions should ensure that inclusive education and gender have been mainstreamed (embedded) throughout the entire training programme. Teacher training ‘should be reoriented and aligned to inclusive education approaches in order to give teachers the pedagogical capacities necessary to make diversity work in the classroom and in line with reformed curricula’ (UNESCO, 2009: 17). Include the following:

• Gender-responsive pedagogy: refers ‘to teaching and learning processes which pay attention to the specific learning needs of girls and boys.’ (UNESCO Bangkok, 2017: 4). (For specific information consult Gender section in Policy page Classroom practices.)
• Inclusive pedagogy: is an ‘alternative pedagogical approach that has the potential to reduce educational inequality by enhancing learning opportunities for everyone’ (Florian, 2015: 6). For example, through Scotland’s Inclusive Practice project, inclusive pedagogy was included in the graduate diploma in Education PGDE at the University of Aberdeen (Spratt and Florian, 2013).
• Training on content and methods related to Learning to Live Together (LTLT) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) (For more details consult IIEP-UNESCO, 2015).
• Training on methods which aim to narrow the learning gap. This strategy, implemented in the United States, has shown modest but positive results in the decline in the magnitude of racial achievement gaps (McFarland et al., 2017, cited by IIEP-UNESCO, 2018).

In addition, it is essential to support teachers to develop robust theoretical and practical knowledge, as well as attitudes and values, on inclusive education (UNESCO, 2009; Spratt and Florian, 2013; UNICEF, 2014; Elder and Kuja, 2019). Ensure a balance between the theoretical knowledge of inclusive education with practical experience (Ackers, 2018). For this, make sure that trainers in Teacher Training Institutions and Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) have practical experience in inclusive education.

Help teachers to develop inclusive values and attitudes, allowing them to become aware of their biased perceptions and demystify preconceived ideas in relation to gender, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, disability, among others. These biases in teachers are proven to inhibit pupils’ academic progress. Teachers should accept and welcome diversity within the classroom and believe in the capacity of all of the children to learn. Teachers should also be empowered to believe in their own capacity to teach all children, as well as understand that it is their responsibility. This can be facilitated by encouraging teachers’ active, cooperative, and reflective learning throughout the training (UNESCO, 2009; Villegas-Reimers, 2003).

Provide quality professional development opportunities to enhance inclusive education

As education systems become more inclusive, ‘professional development is particularly important because of the major new challenges that face regular school teachers, who have to respond to a greater diversity of student needs’ (UNESCO, 2017: 36). This means professional development opportunities (in-service training) should be implemented as a continuum and be tailored to school and teachers’ specific needs (bottom-up approach), which allows them to steadily update their skills and adapt to rapid changes in education. Overall, professional development opportunities which ‘are collaborative in nature and based on teachers’ contexts have been found to be more effective than those that are not’ (Bett, 2016: 1). In addition, it is essential to ensure that in-service teacher training is ‘coherent with pre-service teacher training and the national education policies and strategies’ (UNICEF, 2014: 35).

Available expertise in the school should be mobilized. Indeed, teachers should be involved in the design of the training, their knowledge on context-based specificities, cultural and social norms should be used. School-based training has been found to be more effective than cascade training (IIEP-UNESCO Learning Portal, n.d.; Bett, 2016). It provides teachers the opportunity to translate the knowledge acquired into their everyday classroom practice (action learning). In addition, by being implemented on the ground, it ensures that the programme itself is based on teacher’s specific context and thus aims to tackle their core needs (Bett, 2016). (Consult UNICEF, 2014 and Bett, 2016 to learn specific strategies to increase the effectiveness of cascade training in case it is the chosen strategy).

Moreover, including on-going support and post-training monitoring helps ensure the sustainability of the school-based training. Thus, effective and practical follow-up methods should be implemented to ensure that the knowledge gained by teachers is being translated into inclusive practices (for more information consult the Policy page Classroom practices supervision). Creating a supportive environment is also of outmost importance. The following strategies can be considered:

• Peer-to-peer support: this strategy helps to contextualize, sustain, and embed inclusive practices inside the school.

• Mentorship: training experienced teachers to become mentors can boost professional development opportunities as well as empower the rest of teachers receiving mentorship to push their students’ learning outcomes forward (Govinda, 2022). For example, the Mentor Teacher programme developed in Delhi has trained 200 experienced teachers to support the academic and pedagogic capacities of all the teachers of the city (Govinda, 2022). Each mentor goes to their assigned schools every week, observes classroom practices, and supports the teachers (Govinda, 2022). The system has been designed in a way in which it aims to fully support and empower teachers throughout their professional development, without making them feel threatened (Govinda, 2022). Implementing this type of physical mentorship can be arduous in hard-to-reach schools, particularly in rural communities. In this type of circumstances, and when infrastructure allows it, developing technology-enhanced mentorship through platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook, can be an effective alternative to ensure all teachers are receiving the continuous support they require to complement their professional development (Jasińska and Guei, 2022).  

• Communities of practice: encourage teachers to work together, share the knowledge gained, reflect on their individual teaching practices, identify common issues as well as find joint solutions to their specific challenges (Bett, 2016). This can be done through ‘action research’ activities where teachers actively collaborate and work as reflective practitioners to identify solutions to common challenges (Bett, 2016). EdTech can also be used for this purpose, for instance, virtual communities of practice within and between schools have been set-up on Facebook and WhatsApp (Mendenhall, 2017 as cited in Castillo, Adam and Haßler, 2022).
• School-to-school collaborations: ‘can strengthen the capacity of individual organizations to respond to learner diversity’ and thus create an enabling environment (Ainscow and Howes 2007; Howes and Ainscow 2006 cited by Ainscow and Miles, 2008: 29).

Finally, school principals should ‘challenge the status quo of traditional competitive and individualistic approaches to teach; inspire a clear mutual vision of what the school should and could be; empower staff through co-operative teamwork; lead by example, using co-operative procedures and taking risks; and encourage staff members to persist and keep striving to improve their expertise’ (IBE-UNESCO, 2008: 16). In addition, they should provide actionable feedback to the teachers to help them improve their classroom practices. Changing the mindset around feedback is essential. Indeed, positive feedback should be employed to let teachers understand that feedback is given to help them improve their practice, not to criticise them.