Leveraging AI for teacher professional development

Teacher professional development (TPD) is critical to improving teaching quality and student learning, yet in the Global South, TPD programs remain largely generalized and centralized, and large-scale delivery often struggles to account for the diversity of teachers’ characteristics and teaching contexts. Limited program customization constrains the relevance and effectiveness of TPD, highlighting the challenge of efficiently adapting TPD programs at scale without compromising the quality of the learning experience.

This project will support the development and pilot of the Teacher Professional Development Course Customizer, a human‑centred, AI‑supported web application that will enable ministries of education, teacher education institutions and other providers to adapt existing TPD courses for defined teacher cohorts at scale. By operating at the institutional and system level, this approach is designed to function in low‑connectivity contexts, mitigate risks of bias and exclusion and generate practical knowledge on the responsible deployment of generative AI in education systems.

Aligned with the vision of locally grounded, responsible AI innovation, this project anticipates reaching institutions that collectively train approximately 250,000 educators, strengthening the capacity of TPD systems to deliver more equitable, relevant and scalable professional learning across the Global South.

This project is a part of the Artificial Intelligence for Development program, a partnership between IDRC and the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It aims to support policy, innovations and expanded leadership to spur safe and responsible AI in the Global South.