Teachers play a vital role in creating a stimulating learning environment that fosters curiosity, critical thinking, and a lifelong love for learning. As the Global South continues to face challenges such as large student-to-teacher ratios, limited resources, and inadequate education quality, access to high-quality teachers remains a barrier to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 (quality education for all). Improvement of teacher professional development (TPD) is seen to enhance access to high-quality teachers.

Continuing its commitment to SDG4, the TPD@Scale Coalition for the Global South, led by the Foundation for Information Technology Education and Development (FIT-ED) in the Philippines and SUMMA, the Laboratory of Education Research and Innovation for Latin America and the Caribbean, in Chile, with funding support from International Research Development Centre (IDRC), the Empowering Teachers Initiative: TPD@Scale (ETI) is a 42-month program that seeks to improve teacher practices in the Global South by improving equity, quality, and efficiency in TPD systems. It intends to 1) understand how to effectively and efficiently scale quality TPD in the global south, 2) strengthen the capacity of in-country education stakeholders to scale quality TPD programs, and 3) contribute to evidence-informed policy and practices for inclusive and effective TPD. 

ETI will award grants for country research that explore five themes: 

• Adaptations in modality to increase equity in access and participation in large-scale TPD programs
• Adaptations in the form of quality mentorship, coaching, and tutoring within large-scale TPD programs
• Personalizing assessment of teacher learning in large-scale TPD programs with a focus on peer and self-assessment
• Scaling and sustaining teacher-driven models of professional collaboration
• Understanding localizations in large-scale TPD programs

It will also provide research support for third party-funded country studies and will undertake complementary meta-studies and specialized research; conduct capacity strengthening activities at national, regional, and international levels; and organize policy and practice influencing events for government policy makers and decision makers, researchers, TPD designers and implementers, and other key stakeholders at sub-national, national, regional, and international levels.

ETI envisions impacting over three million teachers and at least 50 million students.