ProFuturo has been recognised as one of the top ten global education solutions that improve teachers’ professional development in the “Teachers for a Changing World Spotlight” report. The initiative is led by HundrED, a leading global education NGO, and the World Bank with the support of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).
The report, which forms part of the global research project “Teachers for a Changing World: Transforming Teacher Professional Development”, presents a list of the professional development solutions which have the greatest impact and scalability in the world. The jury highlights ProFuturo for the development of competency frameworks which enable teachers in vulnerable environments to acquire the digital pedagogical skills needed to deliver high-quality remote education as part of their core curriculum. The use of technology to facilitate teachers’ professional development is one of the main criteria on which the selection was based.
The candidates were reviewed by 51 experts from around the world, who carried out almost 900 evaluations of the shortlisted candidates. ProFuturo is the only Spanish representative from among almost 500 proposals from 70 countries.
Magdalena Brier, Director General of ProFuturo, states that “We are particularly excited that the programme has been highlighted among such a high-level group of change agents. It is an endorsement of the work we have been doing for the past five years and without a doubt it provides extra motivation to continue striving to achieve a shared goal with HundrED, the World Bank and the GPE: to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030.”
The Finalist Projects
The ten finalists show how technology can be used to support teachers throughout the educational cycle, providing technology-based teacher development programmes to achieve a higher quality at one or more educational levels. Similarly, they demonstrate that it is possible to reach teachers in rural areas and communities at risk of exclusion, including in conflict zones. Alongside ProFuturo, the list of featured projects includes Comunidad Atena, LeadNow!, Tu Clase, Tu País, PerformEd, Teach2030, OneSky for All Children, Global School Leaders, Puentes Educativos and Inspiring Teachers: Peer Coaching Platform.
This is the second time that HundrED has highlighted ProFuturo as an innovative project. In 2020, the Finnish NGO recognised the programme as one of the 100 best educational innovations in the world in its Global Collection. In addition to gaining worldwide visibility, both awards mean being part of a prestigious community with a network of change agents in the educational sector in more than 100 countries.
The Commitment to E-ducation as a Driver of Change
ProFuturo has been selected as one of the innovative projects for the role of teachers in their work. The key to the programme is the teachers, those who trigger the learning process and the key to achieving significant change in educational quality. For this reason, ProFuturo focuses a great deal of its efforts on training, accompanying the teachers and providing continuous support.
Through innovative digital teaching-learning experiences, it enhances the pedagogical skills and technological appropriation of teachers so that they are able to provide the best education to children, inviting them to integrate technology in the classroom and encourage collaborative work. Despite the enormous difficulties faced by the educational sector and the high percentage of schools that remained closed, in 2020 ProFuturo trained 535,000 teachers and contributed to improving the education of more than 9,500,000 children, 175% more than it did in 2019.
In the wake of the pandemic, ProFuturo made its training resources available to teachers around the world with the launch of a free digital learning platform, containing more than 160 courses and 2,800 hours of training in various languages. In addition, it has launched the “Digital Teachers” project in Spain, a training itinerary in digital skills to enhance the use of technology in their pedagogical skills.
