Digital education isn’t just about hardware; it’s about leadership. This case study presents a case study on professional development of teachers at a national level using COL’s Commonwealth Digital Education Leadership Training in Action (C-DELTA) platform in Africa. The results highlight COL’s support to SchoolNet South Africa, and the outcomes achieved, including the challenges, lessons learned and future sustainability of professional development of teachers in South Africa.

What We Learned: The C-DELTA Success Story
C-DELTA was designed to cultivate digital leaders among South African teachers and e-learning officials, promoting the effective and appropriate use of technology, in alignment with the national Professional Development Framework for Digital Learning.

The Program’s Wins:

• Teachers reported significant improvements in their digital literacy, especially in crucial areas like managing their digital identity and online safety.
• The training successfully guided educators in leveraging Open Educational Resources (OER), helping them adapt teaching materials to resource-scarce environments.
• The initiative fostered robust professional teacher networks for ongoing peer support and collaboration.

Key Challenges and the Path to Sustainability
While successful in reaching thousands of educators, the study highlighted two major hurdles:

• Widespread challenges with slow internet connectivity hampered teacher participation and course completion, emphasizing the need for flexible, low-bandwidth content.
• Low completion rates on the final assessment were partly attributed to the complexity of the language used, stressing the need for contextually appropriate evaluation tools.

Ultimately, SchoolNet’s work provides a blueprint for lasting impact. The program’s success evidenced by its adoption by provincial education departments shows that effective digital leadership training can transition from a project initiative to a sustainable, government-supported pillar of national education.

For a deeper dive into the methodology, outcomes, challenges, and lessons learned from this national professional development initiative, you can refer to the full article:

Digital Education Leadership Training in South Africa: Learning from SchoolNet https://hdl.handle.net/11599/5971

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