The landscape mapping study (LMS) summary report of the project titled ‘A Multimodal Approach to Teacher Professional Development to Address Evolving Educational Changes in Low Resource Settings’(MATPD), was launched on 17th May 2022 in a ceremony held at the Villa College hall. This ceremony also concluded the project’s first review meeting held at Villa College from 16th-17th May 2022.

The closing ceremony was attended by the Minister of State for Education Ms. Fathimath Naseer as the chief guest. In her speech State Minister highlight that the MATPD is a very timely project. Especially, with pandemic the importance of teachers upgrading with the use of technology to provide quality education had become very crucial. And teaching is a lifelong process.

The opening remarks was given by the project’s lead researcher assistant Professor Dr. Aishath Nasheeda. In her remarks Dr. Nasheeda highlighted that teacher professional development is an under researched area and much work needs to be done in terms of aligning existing policies and practice. Action research is an area that needs to be strengthened to improve quality of education in each country.

The Landscape Mapping Study include two elements: In-depth interviews with policymakers, teacher educators, NGO’s and School heads, and extensive secondary literature review. Despite challenges and delays caused due to an increase in covid-19 cases, and unavailability of published data and information required for the literature review for Nepal and Afghanistan, the whole research team worked hard and diligently in completing the study. The findings of LMS in each country context will offer vital insights of teacher education system and help with informed planning, designing, and implementing of the remaining project activities.

This is a project funded by IDRC in collaboration with The Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation (KIX) The project is a south south consortium collaboration of higher education institutions from Afghanistan, Maldives and Nepal to address the poor quality of teacher professional development for distance teaching and learning particularly in response to Sustainable Development Goal 4.