The recorded figure of teachers who have registered for Continuing Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) courses through a standalone Online Teacher Development Platform has skyrocketed following the integration of the platform with the South African Council for Educators (SACE) professionalism development programmes.
The integrated platform has become more convenient since users were no longer required to accumulate points on an independent platform. Since January 2026, the DBE has been conducting a series of training workshops to expand a user base on the integrated platform. The DBE has recently conducted its last training workshop in the Gauteng Province, targeting e-learning specialists, provincial and district teacher development coordinators, teacher centre representatives, and curriculum district officials. The workshop took place at the Mathew Goniwe Institute in Benoni from 5 to 6 March 2026.
According to Dr Aaron Nkosi, the DBE’s Director for Curriculum Research, the ranking of provinces with a high quantity of completed modules on the platform is led by KwaZulu-Natal Province with 24,750 followed by the Gauteng Province with 14,143. “Nationally, more than 48,299 modules have been completed to date. The number of registered users on the platform is currently at 23,323. According to the DBE database, there are over 450,000 teachers in the Basic Education Sector. Ideally, we intend to reach a maximum teacher participation on the platform to improve effective curriculum coverage at primary and secondary school level by end of June 2026.”
Mr Enoch Rabotapi, Acting Deputy Director-General for Teachers Education, Human Resources and Institutional Development, called on teachers to use the platform as an opportunity to elevate their teaching standard whilst taking charge of their professional development without full dependence on the education system. He acknowledged various education partners for their contribution towards the institutionalisation of CPTD in the sector.
Mr Shadrack Mashaba, one of the administrators of the Online CPTD Platform, views the platform as a multifaceted initiative designed to promote a culture of CPTD in the education arena: “In the sustainability of active participation, users can connect to the platform using a Google search engine by simply typing DBE TPD or through the DBE website. Users register on the platform either as educators or non-educators. In the registration process, an educator can use various features tagged as my activities, my status, my learning pathways and questionnaires. Under my activities, there are multiple components such as macro learning; courses; learning pathways; and events. Users can further search for various modules within and outside the platform. The modules provide users with an option to start the module or add a module to user’s learning pathways. However, the modules outside the platform have limited options to restrict users from claiming CPTD points, unless they claim them through SACE. On the learning pathways component, users are permitted to create a set of modules and are given leeway to share learning pathways with other registered educators on the platform. The networking option demonstrated in this context resembles the Professional Learning Community (PLC) function,” explained Mr Mashaba.