When global training meets local practice: narratives of South African STEM teacher educators navigating OER and OEP training

This study examines how teacher educators interpret and recontextualise pedagogical knowledge encountered in international educational technology training initiatives. Drawing on narrative inquiry and autoethnographic reflection, the article presents the experiences of two South African STEM teacher educators who participated in a European-led professional development programme on OERs. Guided by postcolonial theory and an agency-oriented framework, the analysis explores how knowledge hierarchies and assumptions about expertise shaped the training experience. The narratives reveal tensions between transmission-based models of professional development and the contextual realities of multilingual, resource-diverse higher education environments. Rather than positioning themselves as passive recipients of externally produced knowledge, the teacher educators interpreted and adapted the training through their existing pedagogical practices and professional identities. The study highlights that engagement with OERs in Global South contexts is less about technological diffusion and more about contextual adaptation, epistemic recognition and opportunities for collaborative knowledge creation within transnational educational initiatives.