1. Short but not too short notice, I hope: How much education does a teacher need? is the intriguing title of the OECD webinar tomorrow, 1^st April, at 09:00 UK time with speakers from South Africa, Estonia, Australia and the OECD itself. More info and registration here https://meetoecd1.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xyy4ilPGTdKq-_JgmIq03A#/registration

The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. But how can education systems ensure that teachers are prepared to give high-quality teaching? What qualifications should teachers be required to have? How can different pathways into teaching ensure equal levels of support for teachers?

2. Here’s Andy Brock’s latest post on his Re Education blog, The $4bn Ed Tech Paradox: African Ed Tech is Missing Out https://abrock.substack.com/p/re-education-issue-29-the-4bn-ed

If you put a Teacher, a Minister of Education, a Non-Profit Director, and an Investor in a room to define “EdTech evidence”, you’ll get four different answers.

● For the Teacher, it’s the moment a disengaged learner leans in.

● For the Minister, it’s national literacy and exam scores.

● For the Non-Profit, it’s a rigorous Randomized Control Trial (RCT).

● For the Investor, its value creation—measured through user engagement, retention curves, and unit economics.

The reason for this disconnect is a fundamental Diligence Divide: those with the contextual expertise and the people with the capital are speaking two entirely different and often incompatible languages.

3. Here’s one I filched from Steven Downes’s OLDaily, The Five Biggest Pitfalls of Collaborative Grouping (And How to Avoid Them) https://spencereducation.com/group-collaboration-next-level/

We’ve all been there before. You’re working with a few other people and everything just seems to click. It might be on a ball field or court. Or it might be in a jam session or a rehearsal for live theater. If you’re lucky, it might be a collaborative team of teachers. You bounce ideas back and forth and offer honest feedback from a place of trust and mutual humility. The mood shifts from intense concentration to laughter to deep discussion and maybe even vulnerability. In these moments, you realize that together you are creating something you could never create on your own. However, we’ve all experienced the downside of small-group collaboration, where things move slowly with constant discord or flat disengagement. Deep down inside you wish you were working alone. In some cases, team dynamics can be downright toxic.

4. This year’s NATESOL Annual Conference – their 42^nd – is on 16^th May, on the theme of ELT and Technology, and, appropriately enough, it’s a hybrid event. More info and the call for presenters attached; let me know if you’d like me to ask the organisers for a free ticket on your behalf, please.

5. And, finally and without false modesty, Ethnologue describes itself as “the go-to source for language research, analysis & decision-making” https://www.ethnologue.com/ Lots to explore: maybe start with their list of the world’s 200 most spoken languages https://www.ethnologue.com/insights/ethnologue200/ Guess the top ten before you look? I realise some of you will not need to guess!