BBD partnered with Thuto Trust to develop a scalable, cloud-based digital platform to revolutionise teacher training in South Africa’s under-resourced communities.
Objectives
Develop a scalable, tech-enabled solution to address critical challenges in South African education, including low literacy rates and teacher attrition
· Shift from paper-based processes to a transparent, data-driven model for managing student teachers and mentors
· Enable real-time monitoring of student engagement and attendance
· Improve the efficiency of mentorship by providing a platform for structured support and lesson plan submissions
· Support the rapid growth of the Thuto Trust programme from a small pilot to a national-scale initiative
Benefits
Reduced teacher absenteeism: Student teacher absenteeism was reduced to just 4.5%, significantly lower than national averages
· Increased mentor efficiency: Phase 1 enabled a baseline mentor-to-student ratio of 25:1
· Data-driven insights: The platform provides visibility and accountability, allowing Thuto Trust to proactively address challenges as they emerge
· Scalability: The cloud-native architecture allows the program to scale rapidly from an initial cohort of 40 students to over 13,000 by 2027
Overview of the solution
Faced with critical challenges in the South African education sector, Thuto Trust sought a solution to transform how student teachers are trained and supported. BBD partnered with Thuto Trust to develop a robust digital platform hosted on AWS. This platform moved the programme from paper-based processes to a transparent, data-driven model, enabling structured mentoring, real-time tracking of student engagement, and the submission of lesson plans.
The implementation of this solution has already resulted in a significant reduction in student teacher absenteeism.
Approach
BBD followed an agile and iterative approach to deliver a solution that met Thuto Trust’s evolving needs.
· Discovery and design: Collaborated with Thuto Trust to understand their unique model, which emphasises practical experience and emotional intelligence, and to design a platform that would digitise and enhance their processes
· Cloud-native development: Utilised BBD’s key capabilities in cloud-native development to build a scalable and resilient platform on AWS, ensuring it could handle rapid growth without compromising performance
· Technology stack: The solution was built on the AWS cloud, leveraging services to support real-time data collection, monitoring, and user management.
· Iterative improvements: The project was executed with an iterative approach, beginning with a phased implementation to digitise the core mentorship and monitoring process. This first phase focused on making insights available and reducing friction for submissions and reviews, allowing for the continuous delivery of value. The project is now progressing into its next phase, which will leverage the gathered data and potentially integrate AI to further optimise the solution’s capabilities
Impact of BBD’s partnership
BBD’s partnership with Thuto Trust has delivered specific and measurable value, transforming the organisation’s ability to drive systemic change in public education. The digital platform has provided Thuto Trust with visibility, accountability, and the ability to act on insights as they emerge, which was previously impossible with paper-based systems. By leveraging cloud technology, BBD has enabled the Thuto Trust programme to scale seamlessly, ensuring that quality and impact are maintained even as the number of student teachers grows exponentially.
This partnership is not just about technology; it’s about enabling a new generation of emotionally intelligent, classroom-ready teachers who can address the urgent challenges facing South African education.
Watch below to find out more about this engagement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmOPJPK66l0