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Globally, education systems are facing a shortfall of qualified teachers. The Labour Government, for example, pledged in its manifesto to in England by the end of this parliamentary term. Annual targets intended to support this overall goal, however, remain unmet.

Addressing teacher shortage has become a priority in global education policy. Considering this, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4, Target 4c (), calls for increasing the number of qualified teachers, with particular emphasis on low-income and lower-resourced countries where shortages are most severe.

This blog post explores how the Reflective Approach to Teaching Practicum Debriefing (RATPD) strategy, could contribute to achieving the UNSDG4,4c.

What is the RATPD strategy?

‘Using the RATPD strategy ensures that debriefing tutorials become “spaces” to develop pre-service teachers’ reflective capabilities.’

Teacher educators use the RATPD during debriefing tutorials with pre-service teachers, ensuring that tutorials become ‘spaces’ to develop pre-service teachers’ reflective capabilities. The ideas of reflection-on-action (Schön, 1987) and questioning (Zeichner & Liston, 1996) undergirds the strategy, and it is enacted through four reflective questions:

1. What have you learned from the teaching episode?
2. To what extent has the observation or teaching episode caused changes in your beliefs, values and assumptions about teaching?
3. What have you learned about yourself as a teacher?
4. What change(s) will you make (if any) as a result of your reflection?

The RATPD could contribute to achieving UNSDG4,4c by adopting the following three strategies.

1. Developing qualified reflective practitioners in low-income and lower-resourced countries

While the UNSDG4,4c focuses on increasing the number of ‘qualified teachers’, teachers’ reflective capability is an important dimension of teacher quality alongside subject knowledge, pedagogy and QTS (qualified teacher status). The RATPD helps pre-service teachers to critically reflect on practicum experiences, their learning and behaviour as potential teachers, and how to improve teaching. Significantly, the RATPD enables pre-service teachers in small island states to engage in these activities having been developed in the Cayman Islands (Minott, 2012) and adopted as the primary reflective debriefing strategy at the Lake Malawi Anglican University – a developing country.

2. Being cost-effective and scalable for lower-resourced countries

First, implementing the RATPD strategy is cost-effective. This is the case because associated workshops can be delivered online or face-to-face by a single presenter. Also, during workshops, a single trained facilitator delivers the content to teacher educators who, in turn, train other teacher educators to use it. This approach is not only cost-effective but sustainable.

Second, the RATPD is immediately scalable, meaning it can be replicated and implemented across diverse contexts with minimal adaptations. This scalability is demonstrated by its successful development and implementation across contexts aligned with Target 4c, as indicated above. In these contexts, it maintained its effectiveness in supporting the development of reflective capability among pre-service teachers (Minott, 2012).

3. Being inserted into global teacher education programmes without significant systemic changes

First, the RATPD has been inserted into various teacher education programmes without any significant systemic changes. This occurred at the institutions indicated directly above.

Second, debriefing sessions which include dialogue between teacher educators and pre-service teachers are a featured component of teacher education programmes in many parts of the world. The RATPD, created for debriefing pre-service teachers, is easily inserted in the dialogue between the teacher educator and pre-service teachers (Minott, 2021).

Finally, several writers outlined the RATPD adaptability within teacher education. Norwich et al. (2025) position the strategy as a valuable framework for enhancing reflection within Lesson Study, while Hagan & Magennis-Clarke (2025) show how it supports coaching by encouraging pre-service teachers to think about big-picture and identity-shaping questions and keeping them engaged despite workload pressures.

Conclusion

This blog post introduces the RATPD as a strategy that could contribute to achieving the UNSDG4,4c. However, the strategy should be adapted to preserve its core principles while respecting local norms; pulling on low-cost digital platforms and peer-led reflective groups could reduce reliance on scarce resources; combining asynchronous opportunities to reflect and learn about reflective teaching using digital means with periodic synchronous sessions may help to maintain the quality of the RATPD at scale; and positioning the strategy as a complementary tool and piloting it within existing practicum structures can ease resistance and encourage gradual adoption and adaptation.

It is incumbent upon educational institutions, policy actors, teacher educators and stakeholders to put this strategy into practice, ensuring that the promise of UNSDG4 Target 4c, is realised through actionable innovation.

References

Hagan, M., & Magennis-Clarke, G. (2025). Writing reflectively in initial teacher education: Laying foundations for career-long professional learning. Teacher Education Advancement Network Journal, 16(1), 106–118.    

Minott, M. A. (2012). A reflective approach to teaching practicum debriefing. Teacher Education and Practice, 25(2), 287–301.

Minott, M. A. (2021). A case for a reflective approach to teaching ‘practicum debriefing’ with implications for teacher educators and education. Teacher Education Advancement Network Journal, 13(1), 73–85.

Norwich, B., Baumfield, V., Dimitrellou, E., Katene, W., & Koutsouris, G. (2025). Exploring reflective practice through lesson study in the school-based practices of PGCE primary and secondary student teachers in a UK ITE programme. Reflective Practice, 26(4), 511–527.

Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. Jossey-Bass.

Zeichner, K. M., & Liston, D. P. (Eds.). (1996). Reflective teaching: An introduction. Erlbaum Associates.