On 12 December 2018, IICBA received visits from Prof. Steven Nwokeocha, Executive Director of Africa Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities (AFTRA), Prof. Rotimi Ogidan, Executive Director of the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE), Prof. Nabeth Tanglang, Directorate Academic Planning at National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), and Dr. David Farirai, Director of Institutional Advancement at University of South Africa (UNISA).

IICBA staff and the distinguished guests had a brief meeting, exchanged each specialties and discussed collaboration opportunities. Open and distance education can expand access of quality trainings and other professional development resources for teachers, which is critical to ensure quality education. Prof. Rotimi Ogidan introduced an online toolkit for teacher education offered by ACDE that free for all to use. He also agreed with IICBA's proposal in partnership to provide an online training platform where our training programmes and resources can be widely shared.

As one of the oldest higher education institutions in Africa, UNISA is celebrating its 145th anniversary. Having been providing distance education since 1946, UNISA is a leading open and distance learning institution in Africa. Established in 1983, NOUN is well-known for its university education for Nigerian. It provides a wide scale of programmes including teacher training. IICBA, UNISA and NOUN wish to collaborate in higher education, teacher development and open and distance learning.

The partnership of IICBA and AFTRA can be dated even before the beginning of 2017 when the two organizations signed the MoU to promote teaching profession in Africa. IICBA and AFTRA have been working closely on standardization and professionalization of teaching professions and regional harmonization for teaching professional standards. Taking opportunity of Prof. Steven Nwokeocha's visit, IICBA presented its recent project on Continental Teacher Mobility Protocol for Africa in collaboration with the African Union.

During the meeting, IICBA also shared its activities in transformative pedagogy for peacebuilding, early childhood care and education, ICT for teaching and learning and STEM education.