Coach: Helping Countries Accelerate Learning by Improving In-Service Teacher Professional Development

About the Coach Program

The World Bank’s Coach program (closed in 2024) developed a broad set of practical resources to strengthen teachers’ continuous professional development (CPD). These resources support countries to improve CPD through one-to-one coaching, group training and workshops, and other approaches delivered in person, remotely, or in hybrid formats. The program helped countries design, implement, and evaluate high-quality, evidence-aligned CPD programs and systems.

The Coach program builds on Teach, the World Bank’s suite of open-access classroom observation tools. While Teach helps countries assess teaching practices to inform teaching quality improvements. The Coach program translates those insights into action—providing tools and guidance to plan and deliver effective CPD to improve teaching. 

 

Coach Program Resources: Tools & Resources (PDF)

Resource Guide for Teacher Professional Development Reforms

Group-based continuous professional development (CPD)

• Structuring and Supporting School- and Cluster-Based Continuous Professional Development: Technical Guidance Note
• Structuring Effective Group Training: Technical Guidance Note

1:1 support

• Structuring Effective 1-1 Support: Technical Guidance Note
• Facilitating Effective 1-1 Coaching Sessions: Technical Guidance Note

Analysis, monitoring, and evaluation of CPD interventions

• Monitoring and Evaluation for In-Service Teacher Professional Development Programs: Technical Guidance Note
• Teacher’s Guide Diagnostic Tool Manual (Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish) and Scoresheet

 

The Coach Program in Action: SUNSET Grants

In 2022, the World Bank and Lego Foundation launched the Scaling-Up National Support for Effective Teaching (SUNSET) grants under the Foundational Learning Compact. The SUNSET grants supported countries to strengthen education systems and improve student learning by collecting data on teaching practices using the Teach suite of classroom observation tools, and enhancing the quality of teacher CPD, leveraging resources from the World Bank’s Coach program. The grants also contributed to the global evidence base on CPD: from 2022 to 2024, twenty-four countries received SUNSET grants. 

SUNSET Grants at a Glance

24 countries (Pakistan, India, Romania, Djibouti, Somalia, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Cameroon, Mexico, Burundi, El Salvador, Honduras, Cote d’Ivoire, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Indonesia, Cabo Verde, Armenia, Algeria, Morocco, Brazil, Central African Republic, Eswatini, and Nepal) were awarded Teach-Coach SUNSET grants totaling almost $5.5 million.

SUNSET Snapshots

• Honduras and El Salvador
• Mexico
• Pacific Islands
• Romania
• Uzbekistan