From 8 to 9 May 2019, IICBA attended a two-day workshop organized by Education International (EI) under the banner of ‘Strengthening Social and Policy Dialogue in the Education Sector in Africa’ in Accra, Ghana as part of the Norwegian Teachers’ Initiative (NTI) Project. The NTI Project is a multi-partner initiative that brings together key education players: EI, the Global Partnership for Education, the International Labour Organization, UNHCR, UNICEF, the World Bank, UNESCO and the International Task Force on Teachers. IICBA hosted the NTI’s ‘National Project Officer and Country Focal Point Coordination Meeting’ in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in February 2019. Policy-makers, teacher union leaders, teachers and teacher educators were in attendance at the workshop from four African countries, namely Ghana, Malawi, Burkina Faso and Uganda. IICBA was represented by Dr. Binyam Sisay, Program Officer.

During the second day of the workshop, Dr. Binyam presented IICBA’s initiative and project on the development of Teacher Motivation and Support Framework (TMSF) in Africa. Since 2017, IICBA has been engaged in teacher motivation research and the development of a TMSF for Africa. Accordingly, a critical literature review on the topic has already been published identifying major emerging issues. As well, data collection and analysis has also been conducted in two countries, namely Ethiopia and Burundi. There are ongoing efforts to collect more data in other countries and develop a framework. Dr. Binyam shared the findings of the study and ongoing attempts to develop the framework in the workshop.

The NTI Project hopes to continue to involve IICBA on technical support on teacher policy-making in the project countries.