Re-claiming professional collaboration for teachers in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, as in many other Low Middle-Income countries, teachers have had little access to quality professional education for their role (Wolfenden, Buckler, Santos, & Mittelmeier, 2018). Although the proportion of primary teachers who met minimum professional qualifications (at least having a Certificate-in-Education diploma) is high (over 94%), this training is often minimally used in the classroom and hence does not contribute to making a difference to students' learning outcome (DPE, 2017). Teacher collaboration is considered as a sustainable and cost-effective approach to the need for improving the quality of classroom teaching (Avalos, 2011; Westbrook et al, 2013).

My PhD revealed there is a social and organisational culture that is potentially conducive for collaborative learning for Bangladeshi primary teachers. However, due to a lack of appropriate guidelines, teachers seem to be benefiting little from this advantageous socio-cultural context. In this fellowship programme, I propose to develop such a framework (for primary school teachers). The framework will help to create teacher-led learning teams which are urged to maximize the outcome of investment in teacher training within possible budget restrictions in the post-pandemic situation (Save our Future, 2021; GPE 2020).

While my PhD indicates a need for a professional collaboration framework in Bangladeshi primary schools, it also suggests that prescribed guidelines from an external agency (e.g. researcher or government) often do not work. I argue that the teachers' voice in this regard is rarely heard, yet this is important to integrate into developing any framework or guideline. Hence, I propose co-construction of a framework for collaboration in schools by the teacher, researcher and policymaker. The framework will include comprehensive guidelines for teachers' collaboration in primary schools (e.g. when, where, on what and how the teacher can productively collaborate.)

I aim to conduct three workshops with teachers, headteachers and education officials in partnership with Rajhshai University and the National Academy for Primary Education (NAPE). The workshops will aim to understand how existing social relationships can be utilised effectively for professional collaboration. The co-construction of the framework will also involve key stakeholders in primary education in Bangladesh, including the central and local authority for primary education in Bangladesh and global and national education development partners. I will organise an online seminar for them which will aim at refining the draft framework (co-constructed by the teachers, headteachers and researchers in the workshops mentioned earlier) and identifying the strategies for rolling out it across the nation. My target is to contribute to the sector-wide programme the fourth 'Primary Education Development Programme (PEDP-IV)' as this programme will be revised next year.

I will engage a wider group of teachers and teacher educators in my research through social media. I maintain a Facebook page that has around 900 teachers, teacher educators and administrators and this will help me to inform them of my research. I also plan to develop an interactive blog site in Bangla to further enable teachers to influence my research during the fellowship.

To influence the wider education community in the region I plan to present my research at the 8th Asian Conference on Education and International Development (ACIED 2022). I also aim to publish three journal articles from my PhD thesis under this fellowship programme which I believe will contribute to global knowledge in the area of teacher learning.