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Events and News

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Conference News

2012

CCP logo and egrets

The Power of Caribbean Poetry - Word and Sound (20-22 September 2012)

The Caribbean Poetry Project (CPP) conference, under the auspices of the Centre for Commonwealth Education (CCE), was held at Homerton College 20-22 September 2012. It was a great success with participants using words such as ‘historic’, ‘landmark’, ‘unforgettable’ and ‘phenomenal’ to describe it. The conference was inspiring and cutting edge, as well as being marked by a particularly warm and friendly atmosphere throughout. Read more.


EERA ECER 2012 CadizEuropean Conference on Educational Research, Cadiz (September 2012)

The Centre was represented at EERA in September by:

► Stephen Jull Leadership for Learning in Ghana: Shared leadership improving pedagogy in basic education.  See abstract

► Molly Warrington Parents and Schools at the Margins: Bringing the Two TogetherSee abstract

► Mike Younger Gendered Experiences of Schooling: Dynamics and Inequalities within Four Caribbean Secondary SchoolsSee abstract


Stakeholders' Forum, 18th Conference of Commonwealth Education MinistersStakeholders' Forum, 18th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers, Mauritius (August 2012)

Mike Younger, Molly Warrington, Colleen McLaughlin and Edith Esch spoke at the 18th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers' Stakeholders' Forum in Mauritius 27-30th August. The Conference is held every three years and the Stakeholders' Forum brings together academics, NGOs and other organisations involved in education to discuss and share knowledge on challenges and opportunities in Education across the Commonwealth. This year the focus was on How to improve Education systems, The commonwealth factor and ICTs: facilitating Education Transformation. Download abstracts. Download Policy briefing - Issues before Education Ministers at Mauritius in August 2012.


National Education Conference, Das es Salaam, March 2012National Conference on Education in Tanzania (March 2012)

Dr. Alicia Fentiman and Dr Seonghye Moon presented a paper at the first National Conference for education stakeholders, organised by the School of Education, Unversity of Dar es Saalam from 28-30 March. The conference theme was "Reflections on Education Reforms: Towards Innovative Approaches" asking delegates to reflect on the current reforms in the Tanzanian education system and chart out innovative approaches to enhance education. Headteacher, Ms Biamina Swai from Ukombozi Primary School, who has worked closely with the PAL project, also attended the conference.

Alicia Fentiman and Seonghye Moon with Kenyan High Commissioner in Tanzania

Photographs: (Left) Dr Moon and Dr Fentiman with Mr H.E. Mutinda Mutiso, Kenyan High Commissioner in Tanzania.  (Right) Ms B. Swai, Dr Fentiman and Dr Moon in the second row with Mr Shukuru Juamanne Kawambwa, Minister of Education in Tanzania, centre front row.

2011

Education and the transformation of young women's lives: Commonwealth perspectives (28-29 October 2011)

This highly successful 2-part conference was co-hosted by the Council for Education in the Commonwealth (CEC), the Faculty of Education (CCE/CEID) and the Commonwealth Secretariat.  Drawing on the CEC theme for the year, Educating Women, Transforming Society, it brought together representatives of the UK research community, international, national and non-government organisations, and graduate students, affording the opportunity to reflect on contemporary educational initiatives that promote the well-being of young adult women in the Commonwealth.

UKFIET (13-15 September 2011)

CCE were well represented at the 11th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development held in Oxford (13-15 September). The theme for this year's conference was Challenges for Education: Economics, Environment and Emergency. CCE staff and their collaborative partners contributed two symposium sessions on Sustaining Transformation in Educational Practice through Partnerships.

Session 1: Meeting the professional development needs of teachers
Professional development for interactive use of digital resources in Zambian primary schools (Haßler, Hennessy and Zulu)
Transforming school leadership policy and practice in Ghana (Oduro, Swaffield and MacBeath)
Tackling educational ‘under-achievement’ through developing communities of practice in the Caribbean and the UK (George, and Younger)

Session 2: Issues of gender and pedagogy in East Africa
Successful women against the odds in Uganda (Muhwezi, Fentiman and Warrington)
Exploring hybrid HIV/AIDS curriculum development through dialogue with pupils, teachers and community stakeholders (Swartz and McLaughlin)
Pedagogy and leadership in a Tanzanian primary school: a whole school perspective (Fentiman, Wyse, Sugrue and Dachi)

Visiting Scholar Suseela Malakolunthu also contributed a paper entitled Vernacular school versus national school policy in Malaysia: an issue of integration or division to the syposium on Education in Multi-language Environments. For further information see UKFIET 2011.

eLearning Africa (25-27 May 2011)

Sara Hennessy and team member Andrew Cross attended eLearning Africa, the 6th International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training. A total of 1,702 participants from more than 90 countries from Africa and beyond convened at the continent's leading event for ICT-supported education. The conference was hosted by the Government of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam. Sara and Andrew gave a presentation, co-authored with Bjoern Hassler, Tom Lord and Alan Tackson on Creating interactive pedagogical spaces using portable technologies to support interactive teaching in Zambian classrooms. Download abstractView presentation here.

CAL Conference (April 2011)

On 14th April Sara Hennessy gave a presentation Creating interactive pedagogical spaces using portable technologies in the Zambian classroom to CAL 2011 at Manchester Metropolitan University. The presentation, co-authored with Bjoern Hassler, reported on a research project which uses portable technologies with Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Source software to help embed interactive forms of teaching into classroom practice in Zambia. The work is jointly funded by the Centre for Commonwealth Education and DfID and is carried out in conjunction with Aptivate, an NGO.

Mobile Technologies for Education: The experience in the developing world (March 2011)

On Wedsnesday 30th March the Centre for Commonwealth Education co-hosted a panel discussion with the Humanitarian Centre (organised by Becky Qin Chen). Discussion focused on the questions: How can we use mobile technology to improve education in developing countries? Which mobile technologies are most versatile and appropriate for interactive teaching in poorly resourced classrooms? What are the roles of NGOs, the private sector and research institutions in contributing to mobile education? From ‘M-Ubuntu’ to mobile phones for higher education and social inclusion, what can we learn from existing mobile education initiatives? The speakers were Niall Winters (panel chair), Sacha DeVelle, Geoff Stead, Sara Hennessy and Bjoern Hassler. The event was attended by around 70 people, many coming from outside Cambridge, and the talks were followed by a lively question and answer session with the panel of speakers.


2010

Keynote lecture

Professor John MacBeath was a keynote speaker at the International Congress on School Effectiveness and Improvement Conference in Kuala Lumpur (5-9 January) at which he spoke about the Centre’s work and presented a jointly edited paper on work in Ghana with Sue Swaffield, George Oduro and Rosemary Bosu [did not attend]. More


2009

Centre for Commonwealth Education Summer School

The Centre held a successful two week summer school from 22nd June-3rd July, 2009. Participants came from as far afield as New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania as well as from the UK. They represented academic institutions, Government Ministries and international aid organisations:

  • The first three days focused on sharing expertise and on knowledge generation on leading, learning and improvement in a variety of contexts selected strategically from around the Commonwealth. It also endeavoured to build capacity through collaborative knowledge generation and on furthering this through collaborative networks.
  • Days Four and Five were devoted to working intensively on the projects underway in East Africa with a view to building on the learning and developing the next stage of the projects.
  • Alongside this and throughout the second week, Sue Swaffield and John MacBeath worked intensively with a group of 15 Ghanaian educationalists (education lecturers, teacher trainers, ministry and district officials and a headteacher) to prepare them to lead professional development for headteachers across Ghana.

World Bank & Commonwealth Secretariat Regional Caribbean Conference: Dr Molly Warrington and Mike Younger attended the conference on Keeping Boys out of Risk, held at Montego Bay, Jamaica, 7-9 May, 2009. 58 representatives were present from 15 Caricom nations, together with 38 development cooperation and expert presenters. The Conference was opened by the Education Minister from Jamaica, Honourable Andrew Holness, and the Jamaican Prime Minister, Honourable Bruce Golding, gave the opening address on day 2.

Dr Warrington and Mr Younger contributed keynote contributions to the first session of panel discussions, Keeping Schools from Failing Youth and Youth from Failing Schools, and to the session on day 2 when the development partners met together to discuss Cooperation to Keep Boys out of Risk. Useful contacts were made with Commonwealth Secretariat and World Bank officials.

Professor John MacBeath and Dr Ciaran Sugrue contributed to the Oxford Conference: Commonwealth Educational Co-operation: Looking ahead at 50 Conference.  George Oduro, one of the CCE's partners from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, gave a keynote address:Headteacher Leadership Development in Africa: the missing ingredient, while Iffat Farah from IED addressed the theme from an East African perspective. Ministers (from South Africa and Barbados) and the Prime Minister (Namibia) provided a rich account of issues.

Brunei: Professor Maurice Galton was invited by the Secretariat of the 14th International Conference in Education 2009 to deliver one of the three key note addresses Building Bridges: Smoothing the Transition When Pupils Move Schools at the ICE conference in Brunei.


2008

The Centre for Commonwealth Education Colloquium in Singapore in September 2008 brought people together from Ghana, Tanzania, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK (CCE and CET) to begin to develop initiatives on pedagogy and leadership.

Subsequent fieldwork visits to Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda took place to continue to develop the initiatives on gender, ICT, HIV/Aids and pedagogy/leadership in the classroom.

The Zanzibar Round Table I, July 2008 saw the setting up of initiatives in East Africa on teacher education (in the areas of ICT, gender and HIV/Aids) in collaboration with the Institute of Educational Development at the Aga Khan University in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.