South Africa has one of the most progressive inclusive education policy frameworks on the continent. Policies such as Education White Paper 6, SIAS and the Full-Service School framework reflect a strong national commitment to equitable access to quality education for all learners.
Across the country, classrooms are increasingly navigating the realities of learner diversity and varying learning differences within complex teaching and learning environments. Learners enter classrooms with different learning needs, learning styles, abilities, language backgrounds, developmental profiles and lived experiences. This diversity is a normal and expected part of learning environments, and it presents an important opportunity to strengthen more responsive and inclusive approaches to teaching and learning.
At the same time, many schools and teachers continue to navigate challenges in responding meaningfully to this diversity within increasingly pressured classroom contexts. This gap between policy ambition and classroom practice raises an important question:
What does it take to create classrooms that can effectively support varying learner differences?
These reflections emerge from our Inclusive Education & Learning Differences Landscape Review in South Africa, developed as a foundational evidence and insights brief examining the current policy, research and implementation landscape shaping inclusive education in South Africa.
One of the clearest findings emerging from the review is that teachers remain central to creating learning environments that can accommodate and support learner diversity. Policies already expect teachers to recognize learner differences, differentiate instruction, implement SIAS processes and support increasingly diverse classrooms. Yet many educators continue to navigate these responsibilities with limited practical support and few sustained opportunities for inclusive professional learning.
At the same time, educators across South Africa continue to demonstrate adaptability, commitment and creativity in responding to learner diversity within their classrooms. Many teachers are already adjusting teaching approaches, collaborating with peers and developing practical strategies that support more inclusive learning environments.
As a result, teacher capacitation emerges as one of the most important pathways for strengthening inclusive teaching and learning practices.
Encouragingly, South Africa’s inclusive education ecosystem already includes important teacher development initiatives that provide valuable implementation lessons. Programmes such as Teaching for All: Mainstreaming Inclusive Education in South Africa, led through partnerships between the British Council, universities, government and civil society organisations, have highlighted the importance of practical, school-embedded professional learning approaches that move beyond once-off workshops toward sustained teacher support, mentorship and collaborative learning.
Building on Existing Evidence
These insights are already influencing implementation practices and build on a foundational pilot carried out in partnership with the Department of Basic Education and VVOB. In this context, the Trevor Noah Foundation, in collaboration with Inclusive Education South Africa and the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE), has expanded the structured teacher development program across 18 schools in Gauteng as part of the Khulani Schools Programme. This program supports around 200 educators through a comprehensive development approach that emphasizes inclusive classroom practices and addresses learner diversity.
What KSP brings to this work is a distinctive set of contributions: a holistic model that connects teacher development to school-level conditions and community awareness; a deliberate focus on embedding change over time rather than delivering once-off training; and a commitment to generating implementation evidence through learning notes and KSP-specific case studies that can inform and strengthen inclusive education practice more broadly.
The programme combines mentor support, face-to-face and online learning, classroom-based application, and reflective practices. The capacitation process includes workshops focused on learner diversity, classroom management, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), curriculum differentiation, SIAS implementation, learning needs, classroom interventions and Individual Support Planning.
The Learning Differences & Inclusive Education Landscape Review in South Africa is intended as a contribution to this ongoing conversation — and as a foundation for continued learning, dialogue and practice-based reflection on how classrooms can better support varying learner differences in ways that are both contextually grounded and practically meaningful.
What We Hope to Learn
As we begin, a few questions will guide our inquiry:
- What shifts in teacher confidence and practice are possible within a single intervention of sustained, school-embedded development?
- How do school-level conditions shape whether teacher capacitation translates into classroom practice?
- What does early identification of learning differences look like in practice across diverse Gauteng school contexts?
- How can implementation learning from KSP contribute to the broader evidence base on inclusive education in South Africa and connect to global communities of practice working with the same frameworks?
We look forward to sharing what we learn.
Relevant Resources
- Inclusive Education South Africa (IESA)
- Department of Basic Education – SIAS Policy
- Education White Paper 6
- Teaching for All | British Council
