With the G20 Summit now concluded, South Africa can reflect on a historic moment in which the country helped to shape global priorities for solidarity, equality and sustainability. In the final G20 Leaders Declaration, education featured prominently, highlighting the global need to strengthen teacher development, expand digital inclusion and support foundational learning systems across the Global South.
For non-profit organisation, Jakes Gerwel Fellowship (JGF), which supports novice teachers in South Africa’s public schools, the task ahead is clear. The preparatory work undertaken by the G20 Education Working Group (EdWG) earlier this year must now move to execution. The real test of South Africa’s leadership will be whether the commitments made at the Summit lead to practical change in schools. The most urgent priority is ensuring that professional development becomes genuinely accessible to every teacher in the country, regardless of location or resourcing.
South Africa’s teacher workforce continues to face significant pressure. Nearly half of publicly employed educators are 50 years or older. This signals a serious retirement wave that will reshape the profession within the next decade. Added to this are growing indicators of burnout, emotional strain and high attrition among early career teachers. Many novice teachers are leaving the profession within their first five years. These pressures are most pronounced in under-resourced communities and in subjects where the demand for specialist teaching is already outpacing supply.
For JGF, this challenge is about teacher identity, capability and wellbeing. In this context, accessible and high-quality professional development becomes essential. When teachers can access quality development regularly, they are more confident, more competent and more likely to remain in the classroom.
Across the world, G20 governments affirmed that quality learning depends on quality teaching. Teachers need to be equipped for developing curricula, evolving technologies and increasingly complex classroom environments. Yet for many South African teachers, professional development remains difficult to access because of time pressures, distance, data costs, heavy workloads and inconsistent school-level support.
If professional development is not accessible, South Africa cannot claim that progress is being made.
JGF believes that accessible and ongoing professional development must anchor South Africa’s post-G20 education agenda. Professional learning should be woven into the fabric of everyday school life. It should be peer supported and available to every educator in the system.
According to Banele Lukhele, Chief Executive Officer of JGF, “Professional learning cannot remain an occasional intervention. It must be continuous, collaborative and inclusive. When teachers can participate in structured professional learning communities, they are building solidarity, agency and professional identity.”
Lukhele describes professional learning communities (PLCs) as the connective tissue of a strong education system. PLCs create opportunities for teachers to exchange ideas, reflect on their practice and support one another across levels of experience. “PLCs provide a one to many model of development,” she explains. “When a teacher gains insight through a programme and shares it within a PLC, the effect multiplies. It extends professional learning beyond institutional boundaries.”
Accessibility is still the decisive missing link. Teachers in rural and low-resourced schools often lack the time, infrastructure or institutional support to participate in regular professional learning. Without addressing these barriers, efforts to elevate teaching quality will remain aspirational.
Digital innovation can help close these gaps. Low-cost digital tools such as simple assessment assistants, offline friendly platforms and asynchronous collaboration channels can support teachers’ workloads, enable differentiated learning and expand access to development. As Lukhele notes, “Technology should extend teachers, not overwhelm them. It should allow even isolated teachers to participate in PLCs and feel part of a learning community.”
JGF is also calling for a shared national framework to measure progress in teacher development. This should align with international benchmarks such as the OECD TALIS survey. A common framework would give South Africa a coherent picture of progress across years, provinces and programmes. “We need a common understanding of what improvement looks like, how to track it and how to adjust along the way,” Lukhele says. “Without measurable progress, even the most well intentioned reforms can lose momentum.”
President Ramaphosa noted in his post Summit reflection that South Africa’s Presidency was grounded in the belief that the world needs more solidarity, more equality and more sustainability. He emphasised that these principles must now translate into concrete action in every sector, including education.
For the education sector, this means turning global commitments and the technical groundwork of the EdWG into accessible and sustained professional development for teachers. It means ensuring that teacher growth is not dependent on where someone teaches, how much their school can afford or whether they can travel to workshops. Teacher development must become a guaranteed element of the profession.
JGF envisions a system where continuous professional growth is rooted in cooperation across the Department of Basic Education, provincial departments, unions, NGOs and donors. Strengthening teacher capability, confidence and connection is essential to addressing South Africa’s teacher shortage and improving classroom quality.
As South Africa moves forward from the G20 Summit, accessibility, collaboration must guide the next phase of reform. Teachers are the architects of this transformation. When they are empowered to learn continuously, they are the ones who sustain and elevate the system.
