1.4 Balancing equity, quality and efficiency
In your region or area, what are the most challenging problems of TPD in terms of quality, efficiency, and equity? You can jot down your answers in your Personal Blog.
Can you think of examples in your professional context:
- when a programme was less efficient in order to be equitable and high-quality, so TPD was delivered to more teachers, or at higher standards, but at extra cost and resourcing?
- when a programme was less equitable in order to be high-quality or efficient, so TPD was available to fewer teachers, but it was high-standard and cost-effective?
- when a programme lost quality in order to be equitable, so TPD was delivered to more teachers, but at a lower standard?
Now click to see some of our ideas. Share your ideas with others, if you are working in a group.
Planners and policy makers always need to balance equity, quality and efficiency. When you considered the questions, you probably thought about WHY you had to make these ‘trades’. The goal is to combine equity and quality in teacher professional development,
but efficiency (in terms of time, cost, and human and material resources) will influence what is achievable.
In the following sections, we discuss how TPD@Scale can help you think about how to ‘balance’ the competing demands of quality, equity and efficiency – through adaptation, localisation, and creative uses of ICTs.