Let’s be honest — the way professional development has always worked in Bangladesh doesn’t work.

Inspiring for a day is not the same as improving teaching for the long term.

Most professional development inspires for a day and disappears by morning. Teachers attend workshops full of enthusiasm, take notes and join group activities – but when they walk back into classrooms of 50–70 students, their old routines return. Not because they do not care, but because they were never given:

• a clear picture of what effective teaching looks like
• structured steps to follow back in the classroom
• models to copy and adapt
• time to practise and receive feedback
• support to sustain new habits over time

This is why EBTD begins with a different question: What does great teaching in Bangladesh actually look like? Our answer is the EBTD Framework for Great Teaching in Bangladesh – a clear, evidence-aligned synthesis of international research and local realities. It defines the core components of effective teaching in our context, from clarity of explanation and responsive assessment to high-challenge classroom climates, metacognition, purposeful practice and the professional behaviours that hold everything together.

We do not offer abstract theory. We offer a roadmap teachers can see, understand and use the very next day.

Let’s be honest — leadership in many schools relies on hierarchy, not behaviour.

Titles are not the problem; the absence of leadership behaviours is.

In many Bangladeshi schools, leadership is something you have, not something you do. Titles carry authority, decisions flow top-down and accountability often means pressure rather than support. The result is predictable: teachers feel overwhelmed, culture becomes inconsistent and students experience the instability long before anyone else notices.

But leadership is not a position. Leadership is behaviour. That is why EBTD developed the EBTD Leadership Behaviours – a set of evidence-aligned principles that redefine school leadership around fairness, clarity, empathy, trust, integrity, purposeful communication and consistent adult behaviour.

When leaders model the culture they want, teachers grow. When leaders communicate with purpose, staff align. When leaders act with fairness, commitment rises and change becomes possible. There is a better way to lead – one that strengthens teachers instead of simply directing them, and lifts students rather than overwhelming staff.

Let’s be honest — teachers are told what to improve, but rarely shown how.

Targets without tools create pressure, not progress.

Across Bangladesh, teachers hear the same feedback year after year: “improve your questioning”, “manage behaviour more effectively”, “give better feedback”, “engage students more”. Yet very few are shown what these phrases actually look like in a real classroom with real constraints.

That is why EBTD uses a different approach to teacher growth: the EBTD Deliberate Practice Model. Instead of broad, vague advice, teachers focus on one small, high-leverage improvement and move through a structured cycle:

• Define the exact change they will make.
• Model – see clearly what “good” looks like in practice.
• Practise in short, safe, low-stakes rehearsal.
• Refine with tiny, precise feedback on that one element.
• Reflect after using it with students and decide what to adjust next.

This is not passive training; it is active skill-building. It turns knowledge into action, action into habits and habits into expertise. Teachers do not need more ideas. They need guided practice, structure and the chance to rehearse. When they have those things, the difference in the classroom is immediate.

Let’s be honest — real improvement requires more than a certificate.

Certificates recognise attendance; students feel impact only when practice changes.

For years, professional development in Bangladesh has been measured by attendance sheets, printed certificates and photos on social media. A teacher sits through a workshop, receives a certificate, and the next morning their classroom looks exactly as it did before. No new routines, no clearer explanations, no better questioning, no sustained improvement in learning.

Certificates matter – they signal participation – but a certificate without capability does not transform learning. This is why EBTD builds every programme on the four forces that make professional development effective: the 4Cs – Clarity, Commitment, Craft and Consistency.

• Clarity gives teachers a precise understanding of what they are learning and why it matters.
• Commitment creates the motivation and psychological safety needed for real effort.
• Craft turns ideas into techniques through modelling, rehearsal, feedback and refinement.
• Consistency ensures teachers use those techniques long enough for them to become habits.

This is how improvement sticks. This is how classrooms change. This is how student learning grows. Bangladesh does not need more certificates; it needs more capability and more impact.