Alicia Fentiman
Position/Status
- Senior Research Associate, Centre for Commonwealth Education
E-mail Address
atj1@cam.ac.uk
Phone
(+44) 01223 767582
Qualifications
PhD (cantab) Department of Social Anthropology, Queens' College, University of Cambridge
Membership of Professional Bodies/Associations
- Member of the Royal Africa Society
- Associate of the von Hugel Institute, Centre for Education, Research and Development
Profile
Prior to joining the Faculty in December 2008, I worked as a senior researcher and social anthropologist on several education projects primarily in Africa and Asia. I have worked extensively in Nigeria and Ghana, although I also have experience working in Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, southern Sudan, Eritrea, and Zambia. I conducted extensive fieldwork in the Niger Delta, Nigeria which formed the basis of my Ph.D. dissertation at Cambridge University. For several years after 1991, I worked in Ghana, not only as an ethnographer, but also as an applied social anthropologist and consultant in education. In collaboration with Dr Esther Goody of Cambridge University, I worked for fourteen months comparing formal and informal techniques of learning amongst the Konkomba of north-eastern Ghana. This intensive, detailed research project, conducted in communities of rural subsistence farmers, was concerned particularly with problems of poor education and illiteracy affecting women and children. My work concentrated, in particular, on the ways in which gender-specific practices, such as infant betrothal of girls, impaired access to basic education.
I have since applied my anthropological research experience to interdisciplinary development issues concerning the basic human rights of children and youth, with a particular emphasis on access to education and health care.
From 1994 I worked as a consultant with UNICEF-Ghana, and as a researcher with epidemiologists at the Partnership for Child Development, Department of Zoology, Oxford University. In the latter capacity I contributed to a series of research projects on the cultural constraints affecting school enrolment and the health status of school aged children in rural Ghana. The main aim of the projects was to see how effectively schools could be used to deliver health education and treatments to school aged children. One particular concern was: how can out of school children benefit from these initiatives? This was especially relevant in rural areas where there was a significant number of children who were not enrolled in school and who were worse off (health wise) than there school-going counterparts.
More recently, I worked as a Research Officer with the International Research Foundation for Open Learning in Cambridge. My colleague Carolyne Dennis and I were awarded a DFID research grant to conduct research on education and conflict. Our publication, Alternative approaches to basic education in countries emerging from conflict in Africa, is the outcome of that research. The research entailed field research in southern Sudan, Somaliland and northern Uganda. The research focused on basic education for young people above primary school leaving age, who had missed the opportunity to obtain formal education because of political conflict. One of the main objectives of the research was to examine ways in which the 'lost generation' (youth, child soldiers, formerly abducted mothers, and IDPs) can access education and to acquire the necessary skills for employment opportunities. This evidence-based research was intended to enable country educational planners and international agencies, working together, to make informed decisions about the best approaches to use. This research was policy-oriented and practitioner-based.
I was also the lead researcher on another DFID-funded research project on Strengthening Basic Education through alternative and flexible approaches to Learning in India, Bangladesh, Botswana and Namibia. The aim of the research was to conduct a series of practitioner-based research projects with our collaborators, to raise the institutional capacity of research in local institutions, to establish a network of partners and to make the research findings accessible to a wide range of stakeholders. My experience conducting this research confirmed my interest in the provision of educational programmes for marginalised and excluded groups. Our counterpart in India in this project was the Andhra Pradesh State Open School Society (APOSS), and our field research looked at ways to provide flexible and alternative education to some of the most marginalised and excluded groups, including never enrolled and drop-outs.
In addition to long term research, I have conducted many short term evaluations and consultancies.
Research Topics
- Gender, Education and Development in Africa
- West African Ethnography
- Access to Basic Education in conflict and post-conflict societies
- Alternative Basic Education
- Health Status of School-Aged Children
- Models of Open and Flexible Learning for Marginalised and Excluded Groups
- Qualitative Research Methodology
- Evaluation and Accountability
Current Research Project(s)
- Advanced Leadership for Learning Network
- Pedagogy and Leadership in a Tanzanian School: A Whole School Perspective
- Building Headteachers' Leadership Capacity for Enhancing Quality Teaching and Learning in Ghanaian Basic Schools
- Gender and Education within Eastern Africa
Publications
Fentiman, A. Vikuru, L. and Wyse, D. (in press) The Teaching of English in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Andrews, R. Hoffman, J. and Wyse, D. (eds) The Routledge International Handbook of English, Language and Literacy Teaching. London: Routledge.
Dennis, C. and Fentiman, A. (2008) Gender and Conflict in northern Uganda in Dunne, M. (ed.) Gender, Sexuality, and Development: Education and Society in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dennis, C. and Fentiman, A. (2007) Approaches to Basic Education in Countries Emerging from Conflict, DFID publication in Researching the Issues series no. 67.
Fentiman, A. (2005) The Potential of Open Schooling in Secondary Education in Africa. (Commonwealth of Learning, Canada).
Fentiman, A. (2004) Strengthening Basic Education through Open and Distance Learning: How Open Schooling Contributes (Bangladesh, India, Botswana and Namibia) DFID funded research project.
Fentiman, A. (2004) EFA Global Monitoring Report on the Role of Learning for Out-of-School Children and Marginalised Communities. Background paper.
Fentiman, A. Bundy, D. and Hall, A. (2000) Health and Cultural Factors associated with enrolment in Basic Education: A Study in Rural Ghana" in Social Science and Medicine
Fentiman, A. (2000) Report on the Preliminary Findings on the Constraints to Education in Yendi District, Northern Region, Ghana. UNICEF.
Fentiman, A. Bundy, D. and Hall, A. (1999) Enrolment Patterns in Rural Ghana: A Comparative Study of the Location, Gender, and Health on Children's Access in Basic Schooling. Comparative Education, 35, no.3.pp.331-349.
Fentiman, A. and Hall, A. (1999) Blood in the Urine of Adolescent Girls in an area of Ghana with a low prevalence of infection with Schistosoma haematobium, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 93, pp. 411-412.
Fentiman, A. (1998) The Health Benefits of Female Education in Cotton, A. and Synge, R. (eds) Cutting the Gordian Knot: The Benefits of Girl's Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Fentiman, A. (1997) Factors Influencing School Enrolment and the Health of Children in Afram Plains, Ghana. (UNICEF publication).
Fentiman, A. (1997) The Anthropology of Oil: A Niger Delta Case Study, Journal of Social Justice (reprinted in Williams, C. (ed.) Envrionmental Victims (1998).
Freelance Consultant and Evaluator
I have undertaken numerous project evaluations as an external assessor. This work includes:
- Evaluation of the Bangladesh Open School (with Terry Allsop) for the Commonwealth of Learning (September, 2008)
- Evaluation of the DARET (Developing Appropriate Education and Technology) for Nomads in Somaliland and Somalia for the Africa Educational Trust (July 2008)
- Evaluation of the Somali Livestock Radio Project for the BBC World Service Trust (May, 2007).
- Consultant to the Namibian Government to provide a practitioner-based research workshop, using the PREST materials devised by the Commonwealth of Learning and to undertake a Tracer Study of learners at the Namibia College of Learning (October-December, 2006)
- Evaluation of the Training and Empowerment Program for African Women Refugees living in the United Kingdom (November, 2006)
- Evaluation of the Somali Educational Initiatives for Girls and Young Men (SEIGYM) in Somaliland and Puntland for the Africa Education Trust, (September, 2005)
- Consultant to the Partnership for Child Development for their Sourcebook on HIV/AIDS and Access to Education for Aids Orphans and Vulnerable Children. Visits to Eritrea, Zambia, Swaziland, and Namibia. (May 2004- July 2005)
- Evaluation of the Somalia Distance Education and Literacy Project (SOMDEL) for the Africa Educational Trust/BBC World Service Trust (March 2003)
- Evaluation of the Women and Fishing Industry Project (WFIP) on Lake Victoria, Kenya for the International Extension College (November 2003)
- Evaluation of the Just Write Course for FAHAMU
- Consultant to the Botswana College of Open and Distance Learning to devise a research policy for the college and to train staff in research methods. (October, 2001)
- Consultant to UNICEF Ghana researching the cultural constraints to education and the health status of school-aged children. Research was conducted in the Volta Region, Eastern Region, Northern Region and Upper West.