On February 19th, we went live for the first CPD 2026 panel discussion to talk about something that sits underneath so many teacher frustrations, hiring inequities, and pay gaps in ELT: the messy relationship between credentials, competence, and compensation. The point was never to debate this for sport, or to spend an hour re-living the same industry pain without direction. The point was to get specific about what “qualified” is supposed to mean, who benefits when standards are vague, and how that vagueness creates space for exploitation, especially for teachers who are already asked to prove more.