Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Case Study

Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) is a collaborative network that helps to improve the practice of teachers and teacher educators operating across the region. TESSA was conceived as an emergency response to the teacher training crisis in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and has been active since 2005, a time when there was a focus on the millennium development goals of Education for All. Today, it provides both a bank of open educational resources (OER) that are linked to school curricula and a network of educators who work to improve learning and teaching. The OER are designed to support teachers and teacher educators in developing active approaches to learning.

Coordinated by the Open University, United Kingdom (OU UK), the TESSA network includes 14 African institutions, while partners include the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), World Vision in Zambia, the South African Institute for Distance Education (Saide), the Kenya Institute of Special Education, the Kenyan Institute of Curriculum Development, the African Council for Distance Education, and the Zambian Ministry of General Education.

To date, the initiative has created approximately 100 OER in English, 75 of which are also available in Kiswahili, French, and Arabic. The OER cover primary school curricula, as well as handbooks and toolkits for teachers and teacher educators. The resources are aimed at teachers, teacher educators, and student teachers. The team has recently added resources to support foundation literacy and foundation numeracy. TESSA also has ten free online courses available, which are designed to mediate the TESSA OER.