Abstracts

Changing practice in schools is complex and reflects competing and conflicting pressures on schools  However, project  partnerships often assume an unproblematic relationship between introducing new practices (alongside developing staff for new approaches to teaching), and the establishment of the new practices in the classroom. This paper focuses on the responses of stakeholders to the introduction of the large scale Right to Play  ‘Partners in Play’ (P3) project in Ghana, designed to improve the quality of education for Ghanaian girls and boys aged 4-12 through a scalable and replicable Learning through Play (LtP) model supported by the Government of Ghana. Participants in 3 regional validation workshops explored many of the challenges to implementation. This paper speaks to the disjuncts between attitudes and practices, for example, between teachers’, headteachers and parents’/caregivers’ attitudes to play as a social activity and the extent to which they judge play to be a learning activity. The paper points forward to the potential for improving take-up and attitudes to new initiatives in terms, for example of alignment with other related previous and current initiatives, of greater orientation to more inclusive and autonomous models of professional learning  such as offered through professional learning communities, and to more fully including  stakeholders such as headteachers, parents/caregivers, and representatives of local and regional communities in the planning and decision-making of new initiatives.

The evidence on the effectiveness of PPPs, especially in conflict-affected settings, is scant, mixed, and inconclusive (Aslam et al., 2017; Crawfurd & Hares, 2021; Patrinos et al., 2009). This limited evidence base is dominated by experimental research designs, where “partnership” is treated like a ‘black box’ with the assumption that collaboration had occurred as intended. Consequently, it is unclear how “partnership” actually occurs between public and private actors, especially in societies marked by weakened government capacity as seen in conflict-affected settings; and moreso, how this variable contributes to the mixed results observed around the world. The failure to scrutinise the power-relations in PPPs is a critical oversight as there is no universal definition for this term, leading to diverse partnership models and results. Nevertheless, very little attention has been given to how the conceptualisation and distribution of power between traditional stakeholders and their new private counterparts affects the outcomes of PPPs operating in a traditional government monopoly such as education. My research addresses this gap by conducting a realist evaluation of a nominally successful PPP implemented in conflict-affected north-eastern Nigeria. Using an exploratory research design comprising literature reviews, document analyses and key informant interviews, I apply the context-mechanism-outcome tool of realist evaluation to elicit the ‘theory of partnership’: identifying how stakeholders worked together, and the internal and external forces that conditioned these results. Finally, I introduce, and then apply, the 3-Ps Framework for the classification of PPPs to identify the type of partnership that occurred based on the articulated programme theory and distribution of power amongst partners. By conducting a realist evaluation of the TELA programme, this research moves beyond reporting the outcomes of PPPs to uncovering the intricate processes and circumstances that condition these results. Ultimately, the findings of this research offer transferrable lessons on the nature of partnerships that succeed in providing education in fragile, conflict-affected settings.

The current dominant approach to vocational education and training (VET) does not work in theory, policy or practice. Nor is it fit for future purpose. Instead, we need to imagine new VET futures and this paper is an attempt to move this process forward. We locate the question of VET futures specifically in the African context, drawing on a large-scale, multi-partner research project involving case studies of VET in various multi-actor contexts. Stressing the importance of history, we briefly outline three waves of theory and policy on VET in Africa since independence. Then we describe what we consider to be the major features of a new approach, which we term VET Africa 4.0. This includes a multiscalar approach that is grounded in relationality and local social ecosystems for skills incorporating all forms of vocational learning and actors therein. Whilst the economic dimension remains important, we both critique the currently dominant VET toolkit and “skills for employability” focus and stress the need to think about VET that is designed to benefit people and the planet. In so doing,  we combine political economy and political ecology as a foundation for skills system analysis and development. We discuss the implications of an ecosystem approach to VET which foregrounds relationships, networks, and partnerships. We then make some suggestions on how to practically shift towards a relational model that is capable of addressing current and future locally contextualised realities and needs.

In the context of SDG 4 and the quest for quality education, teaching and learning processes are an important focus of attention.  However, research has demonstrated that very different ways of thinking about pedagogy prevail within the academic and policy literature (Schweisfurth, Thomas and Smail 2020).  One logic is that classrooms, schools and education systems are all open and complex systems and that pedagogy is profoundly influenced by cultural traditions, teacher and social beliefs, structural legacies, and political histories.  These are of interest in themselves, and are best understood through qualitative, especially ethnographic methods.  The alternative logic is that teaching methods are amenable to intervention and that understanding ‘what works’ can make them a lever for improvement of learning outcomes and therefore development.  The so-called ‘learning crisis’ and the ‘learning losses’ in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have lent urgency to this quest for answers – especially apparently cost-effective ones that travel across contexts.  These separate and sometimes binary logics manifest in a range of ways, including the research funding agendas of international organisations, and disciplinary and academic journal priorities.  This presentation will explore the implications of this bifurcation for partnerships between academics in the field of comparative and international education and funding agencies concerned with education in the global south.  It will also ask:  how could partnerships be enhanced to integrate the best from both worlds? Schweisfurth, M; Thomas, M and Smail, A (2020) Revisiting comparative pedagogy: methodologies, themes and research communities since 2000.  Compare, 49

The Partition of India necessitated the migration of Muslims from the provinces of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to erstwhile East Pakistan in large numbers to avoid religious persecution. However, they became the ethnic minorities in their new country. This was not to their immediate disadvantage as they spoke in Urdu, which had been declared the official language of both East and West Pakistan. However, the Urdu-speakers were harassed and persecuted for their opposition to the Bangladeshi liberation. While a select number of Urdu-speakers were able to integrate in Bangladeshi society, most of the community were placed in camps. Using classical definitions of diaspora the Urdu-speaking Bangladeshi community make an interesting case where they satisfy all necessary conditions despite there not having been an event of migration. However, the conditions have limited applicability to children within the community born after 2008, who have been granted Bangladeshi citizenship. Their treatment as migrants by the larger Bangladeshi community and their continued residence in the refugee camps raise questions regarding education, welfare of children and intergenerational identity. Article 17 of the National Constitution of Bangladesh states that all Bangladeshi children are entitled to free education until secondary school. Not only does the children not have very limited access to education within the camps but their scope of education outside is severely restricted as their identity cards state ‘Urdubhasi’ in them. An analysis of existing literature in combination with interviews shows a conscious attempt by the State to otherise these children from their constitutional right to education which thereby has further implications on issues of child welfare. The paper will further examine how education not only acts a fueling factor to the existing divide between the two communities but seeps into questions of rights and welfare of children within the community.

Globally, the rhetoric for the co-optation of children’s voices and participation in research has been on the increase. These developments can be traced to the ratification of various international treaties and conventions such as the UN (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). However, despite the importance of children’s voices, the way parental agency draws on children’s voices in decision making concerning their education remains vague. For children with disabilities, this is of greater relevance considering the significant role that parents play in determining their educational journeys. The right of parents to be consulted and included in the education of their children with disabilities has been established within the Salamanca statement. Furthermore, parental practices which are driven by parents’ aims, values, aspirations, as well as socio-cultural contexts, have been known to positively influence children’s education. While parents of children with disabilities are known to significantly invest time and resources in the education of their children, what remains unclear is how parental decision making is shaped by the voices of these children and how children’s explicit desires inform schooling decisions. Using a systematic review of the literature, this article critically appraises the various discourses on how parental perspectives and their styles influence the way voices of children with disabilities are heard in Global South contexts in matters relating to their education. The review covers the last 20 years and focuses on children from the age of 6 years to 18 years. The objective is to explore the conflicts and dilemmas around listening to the voices of children with disabilities in family structures within the broader context of the dominant socio-cultural and religious practices.

Teacher education in most European countries has been the subject of intense debate and reform over the past two decades, and the challenges of teacher recruitment and retention are ever-present. Teacher educators and their counterparts in schools are tasked with equipping student teachers with an ever-increasing repertoire of knowledge and skills for today’s diverse and inclusive teaching and learning environment. However, the twenty-first century student teacher is by no means a tabula rasa and many enter teacher education with fixed ideas about teaching. The reality of classroom practice is embodied by the practicum, and effective support for student teachers is key to the development of confidence and competence. This paper will focus on the practicum from a comparative perspective by evaluating different models of partnership between university and practicum school in Germany, France and England. In particular it will explore the roles of the many actors involved in supporting and assessing student teachers. It will draw on recent empirical research undertaken with student teachers, (by myself and other education researchers), which elicits their views of the practicum, the support they receive, and how the development of professional autonomy is fostered or hindered. The three countries under review have all witnessed recent reforms to initial teacher education, including the introduction of teaching standards and the extension of the practicum duration. How they organise their partnerships and promote collaborative working between university academics and school-based mentors is of particular interest. It will be shown that student teachers in each country narrate very different practicum experiences that indicate some divergence in their perceptions of the two (or more) institutions involved. A similar divergence is mirrored in the roles of school mentors and university tutors supporting student teachers and how conflicts of interest between them might be resolved.

Amid the worldwide struggle of social movements for a racially just society in recent years, a comparative analysis of local anti-racist politics in interaction with state structures is necessary. Despite a growing body of literature responding to this question, a historical analysis of the political cooperation between local actors and the state is still underrepresented. The topic of the master’s thesis fills this research gap by conducting a historical case study focussing on the political protest of the local minority youth group ‘Asian Youth Movement’ (AYM) in Birmingham in the 1970s and 1980s. The research shows that the AYM was not only critical of racist structures in the fields of work, education, and immigration. They also dismissed the British government’s policy of multiculturalism and its anti-racist funding policies in favour of ethnically distinct groups. To contextualise the attitude of AYM towards the state, my research includes the analysis of local progressive actors of social work and their response to the politicised Asian youth. In doing so, the results of my thesis are deeply connected to the themes of the conference. In accordance with the main conference topic, my research challenges the normative pursuit of the partnership of independent political youth movements with state structures by illuminating their ambivalent operating from a historical perspective. In line with the sub-theme ‘Experiencing Education Partnerships’, my local analysis indicates that the welfare state approach to multicultural development was not only a technocratic undertaking of financial funding but also characterised by an educative project that was progressive in operation. The research reveals how the interaction of independent youth movements with welfare structures amid post-Empire modernisation of the UK has implications for how we understand the multicultural ‘pedagogy’ of the state. This provides a critical framework for future comparative and international research of political (youth) movements.

Educational policy transfer has become one of the most important themes in contemporary educational research but has not been explored fully in vocational education. China has long been a recipient country of vocational education systems or elements borrowed from developed countries or international organizations. Despite the intense debate among researchers about contemporary vocational education transfer, very little attention has been paid to the transfer of vocational education that existed in China in the late Qing and early Republican periods. This article examines the process of China’s borrowing Japanese vocational education from 1894 to 1922 from the perspective of educational policy transfer. The Contextual Map of Cross-national Attraction proposed by Rappleye and the Four Stages of Educational Policy Borrowing framework proposed by Phillips and Ochs are employed to help analyze the detailed process of how China borrowed vocational education from Japan. This study serves as a unique example in educational policy transfer research where historical sources offer the possibility of testing the applicability of the Contextual Map of Cross-national Attraction and the Four Stages of Educational Policy Borrowing framework. This research relied heavily on published primary sources in the form of government documents, journals, newspapers, diaries, and speeches. In order to critically analyze these sources, four criteria including authenticity, reliability, representative, and meaning are carefully examined. This study elucidates some of the analytical limitations discovered by this study while applying the Contextual Map of Cross-national Attraction model and the Four Stages of Educational Policy Borrowing framework to this study. It implies that more theory, particularly on the issue of the complex interaction between structure and agency, about the nature of educational policy transfer is needed to comprehensively and sophisticatedly analyze the complex process of educational transfer.

The use of a European language as the language of instruction (LOI) has been the subject of ongoing academic and political for decades. Most education systems in sub-Saharan African now transition from using an African LOI to the use of a European LOI midway through the basic education cycle. This paper draws on a recent literature review (Bowden and Barrett 2022) to propose an agenda for research on language transition. Multilingual learning and teaching practices are prevalent within mass education systems where there is a transition in LOI midway through the basic education cycle. Policy often prescribes a subtractive approach, where students’ main language is withdrawn from teaching and learning. However, there are also examples of teachers developing additive approaches, that maintain the main language alongside introduction of English. To evaluate different approaches, we consider their potential for developing mastery of the language practices required in postsecondary education and training. We found a strong consensus in the research literature for additive multilingual education. However, we also found a need for research that addresses the complex planning, practice and resource demands of additive multilingual education. To make a difference, we propose partnerships between researchers, educators and curriculum designers. Priorities we identify include: Investigation of the role of language in making school subjects relevant and meaningful to diverse learners; Identification of language practices required for a range of postsecondary education and training; and joined up planning of language learning across the curriculum based on realistic evaluation of opportunities for language learning. References Bowden, R. and Barrett, A. (2022) Theory, practices and policies for ‘late exit’ transition in the language of learning and teaching: A literature review. Bristol Working Papers in Education #02/2022. (URL: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/education/research/publications/bristol-working-papers-in-education/)

Finance occupies an important place in functioning of an institution. However, financing of institutions has multidimensional problems; for while the sources are extremely limited, the needs are disproportionately too many, creating hurdles to fulfil the objectives of an institution, particularly in the context of demands of the developing society and the role that such institutions have play to meet the various needs of the country (Ghosh,1983). One of the important dimensions of distinction between public and private higher education is financing besides ownership. Government support public institutions, therefore they receive a major share of funding, while private institutions seldom receive financial aid from public authorities. Worldwide, there are many models of funding private higher education and in large majority cases; institutions are financed by tuition payments from students (Altbach, 1999). The private universities in India, established through state legislature, are self financing institutions. Tuition fees from the students form the financial backbone of such universities. The total income of private universities is determined, therefore by the number of students and the rate of tuition levied. In this context, the present paper deals with the role of new and existing private sectors in supporting educational finance by exploring their funding models for higher education. Besides, the paper will try to address some of important questions like -How are the private sectors supporting education in India? Are the private players integrated within the educational systems and at which level do they operate? What mechanisms they used in financing and what challenges they do face? Are there any form of new partnership emerges in financing higher education in India? The paper will be mainly based on empirical study conducted by the author on private universities in India. Key Words: Financing, Private Players, Higher Education in India

Abstract: Bangladesh emerged as a sovereign state in 1971. Soon after, various International Financial Organisations (IFO) and transnational agencies came forward in rebuilding the country. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB) are two of them that, unlike other organisations, have been carrying on their involvement in various sectors of development including but not limited to education until now. With their partnership in these reform initiatives, the country’s reform policies have been significantly converged into those that are inspired by neoliberal ideologies. With regard to the widespread concern about the quality of education which is arguably the outcome of the seemingly never-ending reforms in and experiments with the secondary education sector, questions are raised about the justification of such reform initiatives, as well as the motives of those advocating these. Whether instilling reform ideas from overseas are done through voluntary borrowing or coercive lending has also come to the forefront of the debate. On this backdrop, using the theoretical lens of policy borrowing and lending, this paper aims to examine the claim that IFO-financed initiatives are designed to serve the loan provider’s interest rather than that of the receiving country, and that banking business is the principal driver of these initiatives rather than the seemingly philanthropic interest. Drawing on interviews with policy actors and academics along with analysis of relevant policy documents, I will focus on how anticipated economic gains, rather than developing the concerned sector by addressing genuine needs, is emerging as the unstated driver of reform, and what strategies are followed in pursing that motive. I will also show how these strategies produce a vicious circle of dependence on international loans that ultimately leads to reinforcing the perpetuation of inequality. (Word count: 284) Keywords: Neoliberal educational reform, International Financial Organisations (IFO), Educational policy borrowing and lending

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018 ranked Kosovo students below the average in reading, mathematics, and science. Despite sporadic critical voices concerned about the situation of the education system in Kosovo following the declaration of independence in 2008, it was only the 2018 PISA results that marked a major discursive shift that produced a widespread national debate on Kosovo’s institutional failure to establish a stable and inclusive education system. Therefore, it has only recently become evident that education has become a central rhetorical device for political campaigning, showcasing power dynamics and, most importantly, increasingly displaying public and political relevance. Considering the growing relevance of education in Kosovo’s public and political discourse, this research paper will explore the impact of socio-economic status on overall student performance. Despite that PISA 2018 results indicate that “disadvantage is not destiny,” we will extensively investigate how prestigious international scholarships like Chevening Scholarship, Kosovo American Education Fund (KAEF), and Fulbright Graduate Fellowship significantly favour students educated in private schools and universities. For this reason, this research attempts to explicate how internationally sponsored fellowships in Kosovo play a substantial role in reproducing and deepening both social and economic inequality (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977; Savage, 2015). This research engages in an in-depth analysis of the role of the private schools in Kosovo and, despite performative acts of inclusion and equality, empirically explicates how the intake is dominated by the wealthy. Furthermore, this research will attempt to analyse how private schools in Kosovo offer a fast track to better undergraduate and postgraduate studying opportunities for their students. This is manifested in the form of an entrenched privilege for particular social and economic elites. Finally, this research will attempt to empirically justify how the existing structure of the education system is unjust and deepens the inequality gap.

Existing research on the growing number of Chinese international postgraduate students’ learning tends to take a narrow view of their experiences, mostly identifying challenges and barriers, yet lacking insights into their nuanced and multifaceted experiences, particularly regarding what they bring to this international learning experience and how they make sense of their experiences and interactions. This study employs the meta-construct of student engagement to explore Chinese international students’ experiences at two UK universities in order to gain a more holistic understanding. Key stakeholders were invited to contribute to this qualitative exploration through three phases: 1) document analysis, classroom observation and debriefing with programme organisers were conducted to identify institution-provided opportunities for learning; 2) the monthly audio diaries of 22 Chinese students were analysed to capture their everyday learning throughout the academic year; and 3) a visually-guided interview method, i.e., Rivers of Experience was employed with students and semi-structured interviews with staff members to gather their reflective views. Thematic analysis was conducted guided by Kahu’s conceptual framework of Student Engagement, which enabled a holistic understanding of institutional and student-related factors and is considered helpful and insightful to illuminate and indicate contextual trajectories, student engagement and success. In particular, the research findings provide rich and detailed insights into Chinese international students multifaceted state of engagement, i.e., intertwined emotions, cognitions and behaviours in everyday learning, and suggest nuanced categories of influential factors from multiple perspectives (i.e., institutional and student). This presentation intends to share a conceptualisation of student engagement in HE developed from this study to unpack the complexity of international learning and development. Moreover, suggestions for key stakeholders involved, including HE institutions, programmes, staff members and international students as to how international students can be best prepared for and supported in their international developmental trajectories will be discussed.

This paper is based on an empirical study that seeks how the future professionals in the Global South perceive China’s scholarships and university study. In the international provision of scholarships, SDG 4 monitors the scholarships offered by Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors to developing countries. The scholarship flow within partnerships among developing country themselves are not indicated clearly. While there are boosted studies on internationalisation of China’s higher education, limited findings analyse foreign students’ ‘experience’ of China’s higher education from the scope of international development and international political economy (IPE). Specifically, the qualitative empirical study looked at the voices of 39 university students from 26 developing countries, studying in 5 cities in China. The findings revealed an increasingly globalised higher education teaching and learning approach and some persistent struggles such as the language of instruction. The ‘Chinese degrees’ demonstrates: a strong central investment in higher education in contrast to the decentralised trend in public sectors across many Western countries, a strong embeddedness of education in national foreign strategies that emphasise shared ‘development’ experiences, a strong language and culture ‘shock’ to students that contrasts university studies taught simply by a global language (English); and a strongly perceived good value for students’ employability or future life plans. By analysing findings from a critical cultural political economy of education (CCPEE) approach, the paper looked at four moments of education, from the practice to the politics of China’s higher education provision. The students’ voices reminded us to rethink the nature, space, and capacity of current knowledge transformation in universities. The paper calls for a further critical examination of higher education and its relation to international development in an increasingly ‘normalised’ global context but towards a more uncertain future.

The paper examines the underexplored factors that influence young women’s decision to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses in upper secondary school-based Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutes. Although a considerable research body accounts for why young women do not study STEM, a few studies examine the factors that influence young women’s decision to study STEM-TVET (Mcdool and Morris, 2020). The study drew on the expectancy-value theory of achievement-related choice (Eccles et al., 1994). And methodologically, it drew on the life histories of twenty-seven young women in four technical schools in Ghana’s Central and Northern regions. Interpretation Phenomenological Analysis revealed five factors that influenced young women’s decision to study STEM-TVET. These factors were concrete occupational goals, validation, invalidations, influencers and underminers. Concrete occupational goals were long-term career plans linked to young women’s interests and abilities. Validators were fathers and mothers who gave their daughters approval and support to study STEM-related. Invalidators were mostly mothers who disapproved of their daughter’s decision to study STEM-related. Influencers were friends, teachers, community, and family members that provided positive narratives and examples to help young women navigate their decision to study STEM-related TVET. Underminers were friends, community members, family and teachers that provided negative records and examples that undermined young women’s STEM-related TVET choice. Ultimately, it appeared that fathers’ validations are significant to increasing the participation of young women in STEM-related TVET courses. These findings contribute to the scarce literature concerning factors influencing young women’s decision to study STEM courses in TVET schools. It is an invitation to investigate further qualitative and quantitative understandings of why young women can choose STEM courses in TVET.

Participation in higher education can be economically and socially empowering for refugee students, yet this participation is contingent on a range of structures, practices, and partnerships, many of which are not fully available to refugee students in universities. Using the lived experiences of refugee students in Ugandan universities, alongside administrative accounts of administrators in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and non-HEIs actors in Uganda as an empirical case and drawing on a theoretical framework informed by Habermas’ lifeworlds, we examined HEIs mesa-level institutional practices and structures for refugee students’ access and how non-HEIs actors support access and participation of refugee students. Qualitative data was generated through semi-structured interviews from 25 participants from 2020-202. The data suggests that institutional policy homogenously frames refugee students as international students. This homogenous framing and policy omission disregards the unique participation challenges refugee students face, their lived experiences with education, and reproduces complex institutional practices that limit participation and their integration into the lifeworld of the university. However, non-HEIs actors provide a mechanism that place the complex practices of the university within the actual reach of refugee students to facilitate their participation. Further, participation in informal social structures contingent to HEIs enables refugee students to accumulate social capital for information sharing and problem solving, especially to navigate the unfamiliar and complex institutional practices and manage their own social welfare. Recommendations for institutional policy inclusion for refugee students include strengthening partnerships with non-HEIs actors to coherently surface the lifeworlds of these students, to link this to the informal social structures that refugee students depend on to manage their university participation, and to strategically mitigate barriers to meaningful participation for those refugee students in higher education.

This paper considers how the capability approach, developed by Indian economist-philosopher Amartya Sen, can offer a theoretical lens to inform a community-engaged and collaborative approach to research with lower-fee private schools (LFPS) in the Global South. This research field is dominated by studies that in/directly examine LFPS versus government schools on the quality and equity of their educational provision. Interpretations of empirical evidence in support of LFPS are often implicitly underpinned by a human capital perspective favouring its low-cost, high accountability, market-led model that produces individual and national economic returns. Those against LFPS tend to be informed – increasingly more explicitly – by a human rights perspective rejecting low LFPS teacher pay and conditions and wider inequities that can arise when parents (are coerced to) choose LFPS. Both perspectives have blind spots and contribute to perpetuating a polarized debate on the role of LFPS often played out on a global platform, usually disconnected from the local communities from which these schools emerge. A capability approach has potential to shift the debate to the local community. Key to this approach is the expansion of peoples’ freedoms and opportunities to live the lives they have reason to value. Therefore, an alternative conceptualization of independently-owned LFPS within a capability framework may position these schools as – arguably imperfect – manifestations of the agency and freedom of individuals to bring about changes in education that they value, both through the establishment of LFPS in communities and in terms of their support by parents who choose them. This presents an opportunity for researchers to explore more deeply the capabilities that members of such communities have reason to value through grassroots listing and facilitating reflective discussion and debate, potentially leading to the co-creation of practices on the ground that reflect these capabilities within and beyond LFPS.

Global agreements, including the UN SDGs emphasise good quality early childhood development, from birth to eight, as an international priority for all children. This includes a ensuring transitions which require children to cope with potentially challenging episodes of change and be able to adapt to different school systems. This presentation, funded by the British Academy Early Childhood and Education scheme, explores how young children with disabilities can be best supported to participate and engage in early childhood centres, primary and special schools in a rural district in Malawi. The main focus has been seeking ways for education, health and social welfare sectors to collaboratively identify the processes to support children with disabilities and their families in moving into education. Through the use of focus group discussions with these actors, we explored three key questions: 1. How do actors from different sectors work together to identify children with disabilities? 2. What information do they collect? 3. How do they share this information with other sectors? From these discussions, it became clear that all three disciplines identified children at the natural entry point to that sector – hospital, health centre, home or school. For example, in education, children were identified as having disabilities through school registration and in health, either soon after birth in the hospital or at the health centre or, if they attend a clinic at the hospital, at a later date. What is apparent from these discussions, is the lack of coordination and sharing of information between the sectors. In response to this apparent need, we will discuss potential ways to improve inter-sectoral collaboration through a transdisciplinary model. Setting up a coordinated team should also lead to better sharing of information, the creation of shared goals and the delivery of support needed by the family in a targeted and systematic way.

As the international community seeks to maintain partnerships between the global and the local, a delinking often occurs when the perspectives of local actors are marginalised. This paper addresses this issue of marginalisation by bringing to the fore the educational parenting experiences of diverse heritage mothers in England during the COVID pandemic. Current literature on UK resident (and broadly) South Asian immigrant mothers depicts them as either over expecting and overpowering or disengaged from their children’s education. This literature focuses on cultural and particularly ethnic identity formation. However, such discourses highlight a particular static identity of the immigrant South Asian mum and fail to recognise their adaptability and struggles as they raise their children between two cultural contexts. We address this issue by exploring the subjectivity of 18 diverse heritage mothers’ experiences of educating their young children during the pandemic. The research funded by the British Academy draws on one group discussion and semi-structured interviews and through narrative enquiry engages with the concepts of ‘time’ and ‘space’ (physical and psychological) to understand how in experiencing time (changing due to COVID), the mothers created and recreated spaces of learning for their children. One interesting finding is the formation and reformation of the identity of the mother in relation to a changing time and context; another one is the increased activity of philosophising about their children’s education as stimulated by homeschooling. This paper deconstructs the static understanding of the South Asian mother as an exotic cultural other fixated on preserving the cultural and ethnic identities of their children. Instead, it reimagines them as subjects in a state of flux with the changing ’time’ and ‘space’ to provide the best possible support for their children. This work urges deeper understandings of mothers’ complex and crucial roles in educating their children and produces insights to inform educational policy and practice to facilitate productive school and family partnerships as well as knowledge exchanges.

Since its independence, and even before that during the colonial period, the DRC has been a ‘conflict-ridden’ country. These conflicts are linked to various factors, which often reinforce one another, including tensions around political and customary leadership, communal and land disputes, ethnic and family identities. Young people tend to be active parties in such conflicts, through armed groups, political parties, and religious denominations, and school and out-of-school environments, including institutions of higher education, are also marked by the persistence of conflicts. The persistence of violence and conflict as well as the non-respect of human rights call for in-depth reflection on the mechanisms that enhance a culture of peace and positively change the attitudes, behaviour, and practices of individuals. South Kivu, a province hosting a population drawing from several ethnic, tribal, and linguistic backgrounds, will serve as a case study and we will discuss the findings of a mixed-method project looking at teacher education in 72 schools. The paper explores the ways in which teachers and educators act and are seen as actors in the conflict; it seeks to better understand when teachers are agents who exacerbate conflicts and when, on the contrary, they act as key resources for pacification and hold true to the idea of schools as “forming free beings whose values are not accumulation and domination, but free association in terms of equality, sharing and solidarity, and who cooperate towards common and democratic goals. In particular, we analyse peace and teaching through the three key roles schools play: imparting knowledge to learners; teaching how to that knowledge; and teaching how to benefit from that knowledge and being a citizen.

Early childhood education (ECE) is considered vital for development within the 2015 sustainable development goals and it is also associated with significant socio-economic and environmental benefits for society. However, despite these significant benefits, ECE remains under researched and underfunded, especially in the global south where the ontological and epistemological variations within the corpus on ECE render it even more composite. Access to and learning outcomes from ECE remains under researched especially among hard to reach populations such as protracted refugees. We use the 2018 Uwezo citizen-led survey data and employ logistic regression to examine access to and learning outcomes from ECE among protracted refugee juxtaposed against Ugandan children living in the same geographical locations in Uganda where more than half the refugee population are children of school going age, competing for the same educational resources. The results indicate: 46% of refugee children had access to ECE compared to 27% of Uganda children. Children with access to ECE were associated with greater odds of better learning outcomes in both population groups, with odds ratios ranging from 1.31 to 6.51 for access to ECE. In all age cohorts (except for English among the 6-8 year old nationals), refugees children had better learning outcomes. While socio-economic factors had an effect on access to and learning outcomes from ECE, it was evident that these effects were mitigated among the refugee and had less impact on their levels of access to and learning outcomes from ECE when compared to Ugandan children. We explain the above population differences between refugee and Ugandan children by the effects of investments made in refugee education by international partners highlighting the criticality of international networks in catalysing positive effects of access to education and attainment in protracted situations.

An interdisciplinary research team from IUG (Gaza) and Northumbria (UK) have completed the CUSP-funded* project Development of Intercultural Competencies for women engineers: a Story Circles approach. In Gaza, a “protracted crises” context (The Red Cross, 2019), engineering is crucial and increasingly attractive to female students, however intersectional barriers restrict employment / career-advancement. Similarly, the UK’s Engineering Council Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes report (2020) recognises that female career-progression is a particular issue. Research on women, peace, and security indicates a strong connection between women’s empowerment and gender equality with sustainable peace. Therefore, this partnership recognized the importance of addressing women’s empowerment to achieve peace by using the Story Circles methodology (Deardorff, 2020) for the sharing of experiences and strategies for overcoming barriers in professional life. The PI is Amani Elmgadma, Head of International Relations at the Islamic University of Gaza; she holds a Masters degree in development policies and practices and a bachelor’s degree in engineering herself and will present the main findings. British Council funding is allowing the team to consolidate their partnership and build on previous findings. An EME-focused investigation into barriers facing female engineers began in April 2022 and will explore how English as a Medium of Education is experienced by participants in Gaza, and how this might relate to employability. EME is a global phenomenon, linked to the internationalisation of higher education and employability, yet its rapid spread has outstripped empirical research (Galloway, 2017). We are exploring participants’ language preferences when discussing personal challenges and emotion, giving the option to run the Story Circles in Arabic, challenging the assumption that international research projects should be conducted in English, and giving value to a decolonial approach in the former British colony. The projects contribute to UN SDGs 4, 5, 16 and, crucially, 17: Partnerships for Goals. * https://www.cuspnetwork.org/about-us/our-project/

Covid-19 has led to a ‘perfect storm’ as educators around the world have battled to provide education in the wake of a pandemic. Organisations such as the OECD, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank have collaborated to collect and process high-level data from government authorities around the world on key factors such as lost learning, distance education, support of students and educators, assessment and funding (OECD, 2021). Knowing what has happened is important but understanding why and how is key to actionable learning from the pandemic. A comparative and interdisciplinary education research network (CIERN) was established in 2021 with an initial goal of exploring this topic from the context of early career researchers with personal and professional interests in ten countries around the world. Starting by disaggregating published secondary data and re-applying a critical lens to individual countries, the network reconstructed a preliminary report to identify key themes for a further survey and semi-structured online interviews. The three major themes of interrupted education, differential inequalities and digital poverty resulted in the production of a thematic heat map and interview protocol underpinning the second stage of the research to be carried out with educators in each of the ten countries. This will allow for a series of triangulated international case studies to illuminate high-level quantitative data using a mixed methods joint display analysis approach. However, the product of the research was not the only goal. The process of establishing the network, of developing an international partnership of experienced and early career researchers prepared to cooperate and collaborate online to develop collective research was the other goal. The resulting process and product are examples of interdisciplinary and global interconnectedness. References: OECD. (2021). The State of School Education: One Year into the COVID Pandemic. OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/201dde84-en.

Symposium Convenors: Michael Crossley and Angela Little For some decades improved ‘partnerships’ have been seen as a key to increased success in the development and implementation of education policy and practice worldwide. This can be seen in the related theoretical literature as well as in research modalities and work more directly associated with the promotion and analysis of policy and practice. Partnership discourse and initiatives continue to be at the forefront of much contemporary work carried out by local, national and international educational agencies, as well as that by theorists and advocates engaged in advancing postcolonial theory and the deep and far-reaching challenges of decolonial perspectives. This Symposium reflects upon this ‘partnership’ history, experience and ongoing challenges across a diversity of fields, activities and contexts, and in ways that benefit from critical insights drawn from in-depth historical analysis and deep engagement in postcolonial theory. The Symposium consists of four related papers and a concluding panel discussion with participants that include a combination of early career researchers, colleagues from a diversity of backgrounds, and personnel with extensive international experience of active engagement in international partnerships in education, international development and high-level research. While the content of each presentation differs, they all explore the history, experience and challenges of partnerships in education as a unifying theme. In doing so, the first presentation (Little) examines the Conference theme’s concern with partnerships in education, drawing upon ongoing research on 150 years of the history of education  in the Isle of Man, a British crown dependency, with a long colonial history: what types of partnership between local, national and international actors were involved in  securing ‘Education for All’ for this small jurisdiction?; and what are the resonances between this historical drive for EFA and current drives elsewhere? The second presentation (Muna, Shiyama, Sprague and Crossley), reflects upon global-local (dis)connections through the origins, experience and challenges faced by a network connecting small states, and particularly small island developing states (SIDS) worldwide: the Education in Small States Research Group (ESSRG) (www.smallstates.net).This international partnership has evolved over 30 years, generating considerable experience that has much to offer others engaged in sustaining more ‘equitable international partnerships’, connections, collaboration and co-operation. Presentation three (Ruiz-Cabello, Torres-Olave and Barrett) reflects on the PhD process, viewed as an international partnership between globally mobile researchers navigated within local universities, with histories of colonial domination. Hence, early career research identities are formed through a process of self-authoring and collective meaning-making with supervisors and peers within the context of a hierarchical institutional culture that subjugates the knowledge and language of the PhD researcher and research context. The fourth presentation (Mitchell, Chakona, Elmi, Grieve, Imaniriho, Shanmugam, Sprague, and Tikly) draws on evidence from the international research network Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures (TESF). For this symposium we present original analysis of 67 TESF-funded multi-stakeholder projects led by researchers in India, Rwanda, Somalia, Somaliland and South Africa, and identify patterns in the priorities and partnerships for educational change within and across these different national contexts. Together, the four presentations reveal common issues, principles, challenges, politics and theoretical implications for the international and theoretical literature on partnerships in education. In view of this, the Symposium concludes with a Panel Discussion (Chair: Tikly) designed to stimulate critical debate focussed upon what can be learned from this experience, and how this might add to and challenge existing knowledge and understandings. Panel members include a combination of early career researchers and participants who have extensive experience of influential educational partnerships in action (Crossley, Barrett, Grieve, Little, Mitchell, Muna et al ……) Symposium of 90 Minutes. Presentation titles: 150 years of ‘Education for All’ partnerships on the Isle of Man, a small island nation. Angela Little, (UCL Institute of Education, UK) Insights, challenges and achievements from 30 years of global partnerships: learning from the Education in Small States Research Group (ESSRG) Aminath Muna (Maldives), Aminath Shiyama (Maldives National University), Terra Sprague (University of Bristol, UK), Michael Crossley (University of Bristol, UK) The PhD as an international partnership: authoring research   identities within colonising institutions Paulina Ruiz-Cabello, Betzabe Torres-Olave and Angeline M. Barrett ( all University of Bristol, UK) Priorities and partnerships for transforming education: Cross-national evidence from India, Rwanda, Somalia, Somaliland and South Africa  Rafael Mitchell (University of Bristol, UK), Gamuchirai Chakona (Rhodes University, South Africa), Mustafe Elmi (Transparency Solutions, Somalia), Tigist Grieve (University of Bristol, UK), Dan Imaniriho (University of Rwanda), Anisha Shanmugam (Indian Institute for Human Settlements), Terra Sprague (University of Bristol, UK), Leon Tikly (University of Bristol, UK)   Abstracts with full details of the 4 presentations are below: 1. 150 years of ‘Education for All’ partnerships on the Isle of Man, a small island nation. Angela Little, UCL Institute of Education, UK 2022 marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landmark 1872 Act for Public Elementary Education in the Isle of Man, a small island nation in the middle of the Irish sea. Historically, the island experienced economic, cultural and colonial connections with Ireland, Norway, Scotland and England. Its people sailed, migrated and worked globally. Its native language, Manx, is a Goidelic language of the insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family and is related to Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic. In the late 1860s, by which time there was a close connection with England, there was growing concern about developments on the European continent. It was the eve of ‘the second industrial revolution’ which coincided with the emergence of a unified German Empire which threatened Britain’s industrial pre-eminence. There was an increasing awareness that publicly funded compulsory education had contributed to Germany’s rapid industrial ‘catch up.’ Up until the 1870s, the provision of education in the Isle of Man, England and Scotland involved funding partnerships between the church, parents, private bodies, charities and endowments was not compulsory. In Prussia and Saxony, by contrast, education was funded by government and was compulsory. The Isle of Man Act introduced compulsory ‘Education for All’ in 1872 in the same year as Scotland, and eight years ahead of England and Wales. It transferred control of education from the Church to the State. It paved the way for subsequent improvements in the quantity and quality of teachers, the abolition of school fees, and the extension and creation of an independent system of education. So, how and why did this landmark Act come about? How was compulsory education enacted several years ahead of England? Who resisted and who supported its creation? What types of partnerships between local, national and international actors were involved? What impact did the Act have on securing ‘Education for All’ for the children of the Isle of Man? What are the resonances between this historical drive for EFA and current drives elsewhere? 2. Insights, challenges and achievements from 30 years of global partnerships: learning from the Education in Small States Research Group (ESSRG) Aminath Muna (Maldives), Aminath Shiyama (Maldives National University), Terra Sprague (University of Bristol, UK), Michael Crossley (University of Bristol, UK) Partnerships in education can take many forms ranging from partnerships between participants involved in the local development and implementation of policy and practice, to cooperation between international agencies in agenda setting, and engagement in multiple forms of research collaboration. In this presentation, we reflect upon what can be learned from the experience of an international research network that has been sustained throughout the last three decades: The Education in Small States Research Group (ESSRG). The ESSRG has grown to include over 100 members in the form of individual academics, policymakers and practitioners, international organisations and NGOs and university groups located in small states, and especially small island developing states (SIDS) worldwide. In framing our analysis with reference to the ‘international partnership’ literature, we document the origins and underlying rationale for the ESSRG, examine the changing nature of the challenges encountered by all involved, reflect upon what has been achieved and consider what we and others engaged in international partnership initiatives may learn from this experience. 3. The PhD as an international partnership: authoring research identities within colonizing institutions  Paulina Ruiz-Cabello, Betzabe Torres-Olave and Angeline M. Barrett This paper reflects on identity co-production of globally mobile PhD students who are part of local universities with histories of colonial domination. It draws on the experiences of the three authors, who are positioned differently (doctoral student, postdoctoral researcher, and PhD supervisor) and have been conducting and/or supervising research in the Global South while being based in a Western University. The PhD is viewed as a process of self and collective authoring. This process is conducted within institutional contexts invested in reproducing a colonial legacy of hierarchical and competitive knowledge production. Nonetheless, within academia it is becoming commonplace to articulate aspirations to build interdisciplinarity and global-local knowledge exchange. Drawing on the concept of hybridity, the doctorate is defined as a space of international partnership with supervisors, participants, and peers, in which different knowledge systems, power dynamics, and cultures collide. Within that contested hybrid space, doctoral students’ author and position themselves by drawing on discursive and material resources to navigate and act. In this paper, we problematise our PhD roles and journeys by interrogating the barriers and opportunities we experienced within the PhD. These include experiencing a colonial culture where previous knowledge or experience of postgraduate researchers from their home country is dismissed or subjugated. We aim to reclaim the value of the collective dimension of our intersubjective academic identity and the ways we co-produce and understand social research and our roles in it. 4. Priorities and partnerships for transforming education: Cross-national evidence from India, Rwanda, Somalia, Somaliland and South Africa Rafael Mitchell (University of Bristol, UK) Gamuchirai Chakona (Rhodes University, South Africa) Mustafe Elmi (Transparency Solutions, Somalia) Tigist Grieve (University of Bristol, UK) Dan Imaniriho (University of Rwanda) Anisha Shanmugam (Indian Institute for Human Settlements) Terra Sprague (University of Bristol, UK) Leon Tikly (University of Bristol, UK) The international research network Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures (TESF) presents a unique opportunity for understanding priorities and partnerships for educational change in post-colonial contexts in the Global South. With funding from UKRI and support from a large team of actors around the world, TESF (https://tesf.network/) is an international testbed for the democratisation of knowledge production in education. In 2021 TESF invited calls for proposals for sustainability-oriented, multi-stakeholder research partnerships in India, Rwanda, Somalia, Somaliland and South Africa. In an effort to support endogenous research priorities, submitted proposals were evaluated by a team which included international actors, but all funding decisions were made by national actors within each context. Ultimately, 67 projects were accepted. For this BAICE symposium our international team presents original analysis of the 67 successful research proposals to identify patterns in the priorities and partnerships for educational change within and across different national contexts.

The Zambian Education School-based Training (ZEST) programme has developed a School-Based Continuous Professional Development (SBCPD) model to support the implementation of the revised curriculum and policies for SBCPD in Zambia. Working with World Vision (Zambia), officials from the Ministry of Education and teachers and school leaders in over 400 schools, the Open University (UK) has developed a set of resources to support active teaching and learning in Africa. A central challenge has been how to facilitate the support and monitoring of professional development activities across a wide geographical area, which were further complicated mid project by pandemic travel restrictions. Digital and networked technologies have enabled access to a wide range of participants and resources to support teachers and district officials. Open educational resources, disseminated over local network hubs accessed via domesticated technologies (smartphones) have extended the potential reach and media capabilities of learning materials. Familiar social media tools (e.g. WhatsApp) have enabled the remote support of teacher CPD during pandemic travel restrictions. However, the introduction and use of educational technologies, particularly in poorly resourced settings, faces the risk of reinforcing inequalities as much as building more equitable partnerships. This poster will offer a representation of how an ecology of educational technologies is being used to enable meetings with schools and district officials across different locations;  to facilitate teacher group meetings within and across schools; to provide access to resources to support teachers’ skills and development, including the sharing of videos developed by teachers; and to monitor the implementation of ZEST across 400 schools. We reflect on findings from recent research, identifying the potentials of digitally enhanced SBCPD but also the challenges experienced.

This contribution problematises the epistemological substance of the sustainable development (SDG) agenda, an agenda that forms the basis for many current educational partnerships between the global North and the global South. Indigenous ways of knowing have long been recognised for their sustainable potential, which results from worldviews that promote living in harmony with, rather than dominating and exploiting, nature. Moreover, it has repeatedly been argued that integrating indigenous with so-called Western knowledges in global South classrooms would provide students with a larger repository to find local, sustainable solutions, make education more relevant to students’ lived realities and thereby contribute to decolonising Eurocentric curricula. In other words, integrating knowledges should form a central aspect of educational quality that is at the core of SDG no. 4. Ironically, indigenous ways of knowing are neither mentioned in the SDG education chapter nor in the overall SDG document. Rather, indigenous ways of knowing where deemed irrelevant for the SDG agenda, or, at best, to have relevance on the local, operational level. Indigenous ways of knowing, have, however, been recognised in the 2020 Human Development Report. The report acknowledges explicitly the role of indigenous peoples and their knowledge systems for the wellbeing of our shared planet. Drawing on recent studies and analyses, this contribution problematises this acknowledgement as superficial and contributing to an anthropocentric conceptualisation of development that is grounded in 19th and 20th century European Enlightenment thinking. It is argued here that the SDG agenda is in fact unsustainable in its continued Eurocentric foundation. The conclusion here is thus an appeal for development and educational planners, policy makers and practitioners to rethink and rebuild educational partnerships to integrate indigenous and so-called Western knowledges not only on the local implementation levels, but also, and explicitly so, on the conceptual level.

Nagas are an ethnic community, constitutionally recognized as Scheduled Tribes, most of whom reside in the Northeast India. Historically, Nagas have been primitivized by colonial-era British administrator-ethnographers and racialized and marginalized by postcolonial Indian state. These discursive images of Nagas are critical for any researcher working with Nagas to understand, but they particularly inform research relationships with a non-Naga Indian researcher like me. This interview-based study explores the differences between how Nagas and I think about the ethics of responsible research with communities otherized through research and politics. Taking inspiration from the concept of relationality in Indigenous research approaches, I conducted online interviews with eight Naga young adult professionals, who were also friends of mine, and seven native Naga scholars to explore how they understood research relationships. The digital interview method was shaped by the reality of Covid-19. I specifically focused on how friends and scholars understood colonial knowledge constructions about their community by non-Naga outsiders, and how they understood my positionality as a non-Naga outsider researcher. Based on these interviews, the paper argues that, when devoid of community members’ participation, discussions risk framing research relationships as static entities divided by binaries of dominant researcher versus subjugated researched, or colonized recipients versus decolonized agents. When a researcher tries to understand research relationships, including their positionality, in this individualized way, they may inadvertently ascribe sole power to themselves to define relationships. This may cause them to consider possible harm to a community but ignore the critical process of earning trust. Such way of understanding research relationships, devoid of community member participation, can thus reproduce the very binaries and power relationships that critical researchers seek to avoid. The paper concludes with implications for partnerships and collaboration in educational research which will speak directly to the theme of this conference. I hereby submit this abstract for open sub-theme.

Tackling many global education challenges requires that researchers, policymakers and practitioners break down the traditional barriers between disciplines to identify new solutions for understanding and advancing children’s learning.  Increased engagement and partnership with learning scientists, child psychologists and neuroscientists, in particular could offer valuable insights for laying essential foundations for pupils’ early educational outcomes and later 21st-century skills (Abadzi, 2016).  However, to date, the vast majority of psychological and neuroscientific studies have hailed from high-income countries and overlooked the reality of children’s experiences across the Global South, including the adverse effects of extreme poverty. This paper presentation considers the potential relevance and application of the learning sciences to international education, with reference to an empirical study of children’s cognitive flexibility in Rwanda.  Cognitive flexibility concerns the ability to think ‘outside the box’, adapt to changing circumstances and see things from multiple perspectives (Diamond, 2014).  It provides an important basis for students’ more advanced competences like creativity, planning and problem solving.  Specifically, the research used established measures in four urban public primary schools to assess Primary 1 and 4 pupils’ cognitive flexibility and explore its relationship with outcomes like literacy and non-verbal reasoning.  Semi-structured interviews and lesson observations were also undertaken with teachers to understand their practices and behaviours to foster learners’ adaptability. The findings reveal that children’s cognitive flexibility significantly predicted their non-verbal reasoning but not their reading outcomes, in contrast to research in higher-income settings.  Within lessons, teachers used group-based exercises and practical activities to nurture their pupils’ flexibility, while frequent code switching might have also inadvertently helped them to adapt.  The presentation concludes by recognising some of the barriers currently limiting collaboration with learning scientists in the Global South, and with proposals for building more equitable, effective and interdisciplinary partnerships to support children’s holistic development in the future.

Two different types of curriculum mapping are described in the academic literature. The term curriculum mapping is commonly used to describe the curriculum content in a single educational setting. These curriculum maps show what was or will be taught, or the expectations of learning that have been agreed by multiple teachers or schools. These maps have several uses including showing the relationships between areas of content, or between content areas and assessments. Comparative curriculum maps are used to compare the content of multiple curricula or exam specifications/syllabuses. These are used to identify similarities and differences in the content of the different curricula, and are a tool that can be used by partnerships to develop new curricula. Although comparative curriculum maps appear in some published reports, very little research literature discusses this type of curriculum mapping. Where it is discussed, articles focus upon the process of mapping and the strengths and limitations of the documentation that can be used for this, rather than the types of comparison that can be made and how these vary according to features of the curriculum. In this presentation, we will draw upon a mapping of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics from the United States against the national curriculum in England to discuss the four different comparisons that can be made from comparative curriculum maps: content coverage, content placement, and the breadth and depth of the curricula. In particular, we will consider how features of the curricula, such as the way in which content is arranged into year groups, can affect these comparisons. As comparative curriculum maps can be resource-intensive to produce, we will also consider whether it is legitimate to focus on a subset of the content, and how this would affect the conclusions that can be drawn from the mapping.

International educational development has been founded on ‘traditional’ North-South partnerships, reliant on funding predominantly from the North. This immediately places the North in a position of power, with an assumption that the North leads in knowledge and skills training production, and the South in data collection. More recently and in the context of internationalisation of HE, international partnerships in knowledge creation and resource sharing have become a key strategy. Thus, the nature and shape of such partnerships is also shifting as institutions are thinking about what they can do together in a more equitable, decolonial way. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, five international partners, including two UK universities, three Zimbabwean universities and a Zimbabwean NGO came together to seek ways to support IDPs to fight the pandemic in Zimbabwe. The partnership was unique as most of the UK academics were also members of the Zimbabwean diaspora, while one was of Asian origin. This led to new insights into the complexities of North-South partnerships in which all the actors involved were originally from the South, with some settled in the North. This intersection of the ‘local’ and the ‘diaspora’ negotiating a decolonial approach in our work with IDPs was unpredictable and enlightening. The sharing of knowledge among all partners was founded on a communal understanding of the context and complexities therein. As black and brown researchers, we did not need to ‘experience [our] being through others’ (Fanon, 1986, p.82), we were able to direct the project from the ‘scholarship of black and indigenous peoples’ (Noxolo, 2017, p.318). There were challenges; complex colonial/post-colonial behaviours, working collegiately as members of the diaspora and the local, and power dynamics in research leadership and fund management. This necessitated a dismantling of colonial power structures/behaviours and a negotiation of roles that played to each individual’s strengths. We suggest that the new relationships we experienced succeeded due to our mutual consciousness and a ‘shift away from the dreams of mastery’ (Mbembe, 2015).

This paper examines the role of the internationalisation of higher education (IHE) in the Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, the paper addresses SDG 4 Target 7’s call for education to provide the knowledge and skills for all learners to promote ‘a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, appreciation of cultural diversity, and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development’. The IHE supports students’ academic and personal growth through international, intercultural, and global learning opportunities Yet, an updated framework that reflects current realities remains absent. The paper draws upon a systemic literature review  of research on higher education, internationalisation, and sustainable development. The aim is to identify, evaluate, and synthesise existing research to create a framework to understand the internationalisation of higher education in SDG 4.7. Data collection focused on journal articles indexed in SCOPUS. A total of 299 journal articles were identified. Data analysis included close readings complimented by NVivo to identify themes and make connections between and among the data. Findings show that IHE has moved beyond the historical dominance of physical international student mobility to diverse forms that transverse physical and digital spaces inside and outside the classroom. Innovation in IHE, the return to its roots of mutual understanding and peace, and expansion of digital international learning spaces accelerated by COVID-19 gives a preview of the future trajectory of IHE for SDG 4.7. The paper proposes a framework building upon Knight’s work on internationalisation by incorporating recent themes of comprehensive internationalisation, international for society, inclusive internationalisation, and internationalisation at a distance. By doing so, the paper hopes to guide future research and insights in understanding if and how IHE is moving towards leaving no one behind and contributing to SDG 4.7.

The impact and influence of macro global policy advocated by and through multi-lateral organisations on local practices cannot be understated. Views of organisations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, ILO, IMF, OECD and the World Bank has become the blueprint and foundational to many (education) policies worldwide, but more specifically in the Global South, where countries require rapid social, economic and political transformation. As King (2007) astutely notes, these multilateral organisations play a vital role “in designing the architecture” for the policy agenda (p,377). The influence of these International Organisations are particularly evident in the education sector, where policies such as the Millennium Development Goals which evolved into the currently prevailing Sustainable Development Goals and Education for All has been etched into most countries’ education agenda and education policy landscape. Adopting the views of multilateral organisations into local policies has also given credence and credibility to these policies as well as to the states, resulting in funding opportunities and entry into a global fraternity of like-minded groups. This symposia discusses the effects of this influence on the governance and curriculum in selected African states. As such, this symposia consists of three papers that demonstrate the effect of global macro policy on the local experiences of teachers and learners in the Global South. The first paper, presented by Yusuf Sayed & Gunjan Sharma highlights how multilateral organisations position themselves as architects of global education policy by saturating and dominating the (education) policy space with its views and agenda and the implications. The second paper, presented by Aditi Desai & Abdi Rahman, looks at the experiences of teaching and learning in conflict areas of Somalia and Ethiopia, how global policies are localised and how it manifests in practice. The symposia concludes with a presentation by Marcina Singh and Lynne Johns, that discusses how public-private partnerships have evolved in South Africa after the call for “strengthened partnerships” at the 1990 Jomtien, with a particular focus on the experience of teachers. The findings of the papers presented here speak to the global-local dialectic in policy and the implications for the state and how this global-local dialectic shape and reshapes the work of teachers, and their the ability to provide equitable and quality learning for all. Paper 1: UNESCO: Promising Education Multilateralism? Authors: Yusuf Sayed (Presenter), Gunjan Sharma (20 minutes) Drawing on a review of primary and secondary literature, this paper examines the intellectual trajectory of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) educational agenda over nearly eight decades of its existence. Tracing this evolution in four interrelated phases and critically interrogating significant education reports produced by UNESCO, this paper examines its functioning as part of the international global architecture for education development and as part of the field of global policy, in general, and education policy. The article charts how over time UNESCO’s image also changed to becoming an entity positioned as an evidence broker and monitoring agency. The analysis of UNESCO points to the need for a better understanding of how global education policy is shaped and reshaped across and between actors within the international development field and how positioning for hegemonic power discursively constitutes the formulation, implementation and monitoring of the global education agenda. Paper 2: The Teaching and learning experiences of teachers and learners in Ethiopia and Somalia Authors: Abdi Rahman (Presenter), Muctar Hersi, Jal Paul, Bang Choul, Aditi Desai, Ashika Sharma, Massimo Alone, Yusuf Sayed (20 minutes) This paper presents an empirically grounded account of the learning experiences of teachers and learners, who are displaced by conflict in Ethiopia and Somalia. It will also shed light on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the teaching and learning experiences of marginalised and vulnerable learners, intensifying and exacerbating inequalities in crises affected contexts. By building a careful and nuanced empirical account of the programme, influence by global macro policy, and the political economy context in which schools operate, the study aims to enhance national and global dialogues about strategies to increase access to quality education in conflict-affected contexts. The paper suggests that quality teaching and learning for IDP(internationally displaced persons) and refugee children are strongly contoured by learners’ and teachers’ experiences and context. Paper 3: Teachers’ experiences of public-private partnerships in South Africa: Experiences from rural and urban schools in the Western Cape Province Authors: Marcina Singh (Presenter) and Lynne Johns (20 minutes) Public Private Partnerships (PPP) has been heralded as the solution to the states inability to provide good quality education to the poorest communities. Whilst PPP’s have been around for several decades, such as the Charter schools in the USA and the Academies in the UK, in South Africa and particularly the Western Cape province the approach is relatively new. The mid-decade review of the Jomtien 1990, held in 1996 noted that “As governments seek ways to decentralize responsibility for education, equalize educational opportunities, and raise more funds, they need strong and innovative allies”(p,2). Further to this, the World Bank (2019) echoes this by arguing that “Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can be a tool to get more quality infrastructure services to more people. When designed well and implemented in a balanced regulatory environment, PPPs can bring greater efficiency and sustainability to the provision of public services such as energy, transport, telecommunications, water, healthcare, and education. PPPs can also allow for better allocation of risk between public and private entities.” However, very little is known about teachers’ experiences of teaching and learning within this form of education governance and even less is understood about how this form of governance promotes the affective dimension of schooling and education. The paper suggests, through speaking to teachers, that whilst much emphasis is placed on improving the quality of education through the improvement of learner performance, the lack of emphasis on promoting the values of citizenship and social cohesion suggests that PPP schools adopt a market-oriented approach to education, which has implications for equity, equality, and social justice.

India has been consistently striving towards improving the governance of school education to ensure better functioning of schools and for improving children’s participation as well as learning outcomes. Many studies have emphasized on the ‘meaningful access’ of children, which is not only determined by the quantitative expansion of education but also by the qualitative expansion which considerably impacts on children’s regular attendance, learning, retention, transition and school completion. Education policies in India have stressed on quantitative and qualitative expansion of education which warrants for development and sustenance of a strong educational management system involving different stakeholders at the different administrative levels. With this backdrop, drawing references from a recent participatory action research conducted in six Indian states, the paper discusses different issues involved in schooling access and participation of children at the elementary level. The paper throws light on how various initiatives jointly taken by different functionaries could help selected government schools to improve their functioning ensuring effective participation of children enrolled in these schools. It will also reflect on specific actions taken during and post COVID-19 for educating these children. Finally, the paper recommends appropriate steps for further improvement of school governance, in the specific contexts of these schools which in turn will improve children’s school participation and learning outcomes. This paper is based on a comparative study of different collaborative and collective initiatives taken by sub-national level government functionaries, school heads and teachers in different states, as a part of a participatory action research. Thus, the paper would be more connected to the main theme of the conference rather than any specific sub-theme making it appropriate for the ‘open theme’ category.

The ‘residential Deaf schools’, originated in 1912 as an derivative of the colonial regimes are the educational settings for the ‘Deaf’ or the ‘profoundly hearing impaired’ student populations in Sri Lanka. In the post-colonial era, even though grouped under the non-formal education category, labelled as ‘government-assisted schools’ and provided with less than usual state support, and associated with ‘low academic achievement’ following the similar Deaf education trend in the global South (Knoors, Brons & Marschark, 2019), these educational institutions continues to hold ground and remain as long standing formal educational service providers to the Deaf communities in the country. The support for these schools are generically associated with the ‘local government’ and ‘non-government, religious organizations’. In an exploratory mixed methods study on literacy skills acquisition of Deaf students in the Sri Lanka, the theme on ‘supports for the Deaf schools’ was explored by engaging with key educational stakeholders comprising 16 Deaf school principals/head teachers and 61 primary, Deaf school teachers by using self-administered questionnaires and twelve telephone interviews. The findings on ‘supports for the Deaf schools’, informed of an array of formal and informal support partnerships through an assortment of support ‘sources’ and myriad ‘types’ of supports received at the classroom and the school level, changing the initial simplistic binary view of supports and partnerships associated with these Deaf schools. The pandemic related contextual influences and key changes in the supports and partnerships of the Deaf schools were also identified. As implications of this exploration, while acknowledging the value of existing supports and partnerships, and employing the empirical findings as a basis, recommendations and pointers for sharpening the ‘equitable and sustainable Deaf education’ in the Sri Lankan context will be discussed.

From 2017, The Open University (UK) and World Vision (Zambia) have developed a model of School-Based Continuous Professional Development (SBCPD) for primary teachers. The Zambian Education School-based Training (ZEST) programme supports the implementation of the revised curriculum and policies for SBCPD. Zambia has established structures and roles in place to support SBCPD through Teacher Group Meetings, School and Zonal In-service Coordinators and District and Province support teams. However there is a lack of resources to foster professional discussions around teaching and learning the regular Teacher Group Meetings.  Using an iterative co-design process, ZEST has developed online resources, which are being used in over 400 schools in Central Province and are freely available, to support active teaching and learning in Africa. Through collaboration with local province, district and zonal officials as well as school leaders and teachers, ZEST has collected stories of the impact that collaborative planning of teaching activities; peer support and observation; and teacher reflection, have had on learners and education professionals. With contributions from practitioners in the participating schools and districts, this poster offers a representation of how the partnership between the Open University (UK), World Vision (Zambia), education officials and teachers has matured developing each participants’ skills and competences to contribute to successful SBCPD and achieve more learner-centred teaching in schools in Zambia.

Identifying a literature gap addressing student teachers’ internship expectations and experiences regarding gender in China, this research strived to explore and interpret a university’s English language student teachers’ teaching expectations and experiences through gender lens during a three-month high school internship in South China. Employing semi-structured in-depth interviews and reflective accounts, a qualitative case study of 7 participants was completed and two major findings emerged: First, the participants typically expected and experienced teaching concerning collaborations with peers and mentors. As suggested by Rigelman and Ruben (2012), the effectiveness of peer collaboration relied heavily on the degree of empathy and mutual trust between student teachers. Specifically, the peers’ emotional support between many participants (4) based on mutual trust and understanding were found to be effective buffering emotional exhaustion during the teaching internship, which paralleled Voss and Kunter’s (2020) research findings with a group of German secondary mathematics teacher candidates. In addition, most participants (5) conceptualised their collaboration with mentors in relation to professional adequacy development. As believed by Bullough (2015), mentors’ feedback during teaching collaboration facilitated and accelerated some participants’ (3) focus shift from their own behaviour to student learning in the classroom. However, the unequal power relationship between the mentor and the student teacher also led to a loss of individuality and autonomy in one participant’s teaching practice. Second, gender differences were found when participants conceptualised interactions with students. In particular, a task-people difference was identified regarding student progress that males concentrated on problem-solving strategies whilst females focused more on interpersonal relationships. Results of this research suggest a need to consider English language student teachers’ teaching expectations and experiences in respect of gender characteristics when preparing them for and supporting them through teaching internships in a high school context in China.

In this paper we will present collaborative collaging as an innovative form of knowledge production. We would like to share our ongoing and emerging story as a collective partnership which began a couple of years ago when we were working from home and conceptualising ways to understand commonalities between ours and others’ research into child/hoods using visual and verbal snapshots to share insights from our research. Collaborative collaging emerged as a method of knowledge creation (Cranham et.al. 2022) and continues with our ongoing praxis including workshops at several educational research conferences and events where relational childhoods and adulthoods were explored. A collage brings together different stories into an emerging picture – complex, dynamic and messy. Inspired by contemporary relationships with technology and based on multi-sensory experiences, collaging stimulates emergent, embodied, material knowledge-creation. Collaging is a participatory and collaborative methodology where the outcome is undetermined and assemblages of materials give rise to non-hierarchical, holistic and non-linear ways of knowing. In these practices we are resisting accelerated modes of knowledge production which dominate neoliberal systems of higher education (Mountz, 2015) and make space for a feminist collaborative creative deceleration enabling care for self,  becomings and matterings (Taylor, 2020). As Culshaw (2019) notes, “…alternative approaches such as collage can upset our assumptions, making the familiar seem uncomfortably strange”. Drawing on empirical data from our ongoing praxis, we would like to reimagine education as a tool for producing multiple ways of knowing rather than a mechanism for transferring knowledge, thereby dismantling traditional hierarchies.  Collaborative collaging is a relational, generative process of slow scholarship which we would like to take forward as a post humanist feminist pedagogy (Taylor 2016). This approach has the potential to be utilised in multiple educational contexts – locally and internationally – offering ways for more just, inclusive and ethical research and practice.   References Cranham, J., Dutta, M., Hogarth, H., Boukhari, S., Govaerts, F., Neiada, E., & Krayem, M. (2022).  Collaging childhoods’ relationships, BERA Blog Publications.  https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/collaging-childhoods-relationships Culshaw, S. (2019) ‘The unspoken power of collage? Using an innovative arts-based research method to explore the experience of struggling as a teacher’. London Review of Education, 17 (3): 268–283. Mountz, A., Bonds, A., Mansfield, B., Loyd, J., Hyndman, J., Walton-Roberts, M., Basu, R., Whitson, R., Hawkins, R., Hamilton, T. and Curran, W., 2015. For slow scholarship: A feminist politics of resistance through collective action in the neoliberal university. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 14(4), pp.1235-1259. Taylor, C., 2016. Edu-crafting a cacophonous ecology: Posthumanist research practices for education. In: C. Taylor and C. Hughes, eds. Posthuman research practice in education. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 5-24. Taylor, C.A., 2020. Slow singularities for collective mattering: new material feminist praxis in the accelerated academy. Irish Educational Studies, 39(2), pp.255-272.

According to UNESCO´s conviction, systems competence is one out of eight key competences which should be developed by each individual learner in the context of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Within these eight key competences systems competence has an extraordinary meaning for ESD because it creates the conditions to perceive and understand environmental-societal interrelations and contributes strongly to the development of all the other seven key competences. Though there is a long tradition of systems learning and competence development (e.g. Meadows Rempfler/Uphues 2011; Fögele/Mehren/Rempfler 2020) a concise and interculturally designed learning course to develop the intended systems competence in the context of sustainable development is missing. The aim of the creative session is to fill this gap by introducing a way how to achieve systems competence of the learners by following ten subsequent steps of teaching. Each step focuses on a specific aspect of the intended systems competence such as perceiving daily use items and recognize them as element(s) of more or less complex systems, the design of concept maps as the visualization of systems or the identification of leverage points to change systems in the sense of sustainable development, just to name a few. To enable the learners to cope with the challenges of the singles steps, each of these learning units is combined with suggestions for supporting learning methods. By means of two examples (Jeans and Chips) the participants will gain an insight into the adaptation of the theoretical based learning course ten steps towards systems thinking. This learning course has been developed interculturally by the international think tank on ESD “ESD Expert Net”. The learning course considers the demands of the educational systems in Mexico, South Africa, India and Germany. Within the interactive phase of the creative session, the participants will identify suitable topics for an own systems thinking learning course. The suitability of the suggested topics will be discussed commonly with all participants. On the base of this discussion, the participants will develop a rough sketch of their individually chosen topic through the ten steps towards systems thinking. A final discussion and a general reflection on the suggested learning course will round up the workshop. The creative session of 90 minutes is divided into four sections: Introduction into the 10 steps towards Systems Thinking. During this section, the participants will know how are these ten steps integrates and how it can be applied. Adapting the learning course along an example. Identification of suitable topics – The participants will work in small groups and define a suitable topic to apply with the ten steps. Final discussion / reflection on 10 steps Towards Systems Thinking At the end of the creative session, the participants will be able to identify suitable topics and have a general idea how to design a concise learning course for the development of systems thinking competence Thomas Hoffman teaches geography, history, political sciences and economy at Windeck-Gymnasium in Bühl, he also works as Head of Geography Department at the Teacher Training Center Karlsruhe,  he is a Honorary Professor for ESD at Leuphana University in Lüneburg as well as Lecturer for Geography Didactics at Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT). Sanskriti Menon is Senior Programme Director, Centre for Environment Education, and is based in Pune, India. She anchors CEE’s Urban Programmes and is involved in a range of urban issues including mobility, waste, ecosystems, and climate change. Sanskriti’s main interest in Systems Thinking is facilitating multi-stakeholder processes that enhance systems understanding and collaborative action for sustainability in the context of collaborating governance systems. Wendy has worked in formal education in Mexico for more than 20 years. Currently, she is carrying out her doctoral research at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin in the field of ESD. All the facilitators are members of the working group “Developing learning materials” within the ESD Expert Net. REFERENCES Meadows, Donella H. (2008): Thinking in Systems London Rempfler, A. & Uphues, R. (2011). Systemkompetenz im Geographieunterricht: Die Entwicklung eines Kompetenzmodells. In C. Meyer  (Hrsg.), Geographische Bildung: Kompetenzen in Forschung und Praxis. Gemeinsames Symposium des GEI und HGD, (S. 36‐48). Braunschweig: Westermann. Fögele, J., Mehren, R. & Rempfler, A. (2020): Tipping Points – Schlüssel zum tiefgründigen Verständnis komplexer dynamischer Systeme auf Seiten von Schülern? Zeitschrift für Geographiedidaktik. 48 (3), 83‐100. Hoffmann, T., Menon, S., Morel, W., Nkosi, T., Pape, N. (2022) Ten Steps towards Systems Thinking – An Education for Sustainable Development Manual for teachers, educators, and facilitators. Centre for Environment Education. India.  https://esd-expert.net/teaching-and-learning-materials.html

Symposium Summary: This 90-minute symposium explores how and what knowledge is constructed, with a focus on the creation and implications of SDG 4. The construction of SDG 4 has been regarded by some as one of the most inclusive, consultative processes in UNESCO history. In bringing together voices across a variety of sectors, the early dialogue and discourse that built up to SDG 4 illustrates the challenges of consensus making. Collaborative attempts to bring together actors with various perspectives provided some moments of hope, next to regular fragmentation and competition. The three papers presented in this panel examine the decision-making journey that led to the formulation of SDG 4, how the understanding of quality and inclusion has changed over the formulation and implementation process, and how non-knowledge is understood and constructed, in SDG 4 and through other examples from international organisations. The symposium will consist of three presentations of 15 minutes each followed by a 10-minute discussant. This will leave approximately 30 minutes for open discussion. Participants: Clara Fontdevila, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona/University of Glasgow William C. Smith, University of Edinburgh Sotiria Grek, University of Edinburgh Elaine Unterhalter, University College London (Discussant) Paper Abstracts: ‘Not the destination but the journey’: Competing decision-making structures in the formulation of SDG 4 Clara Fontdevila, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona/University of Glasgow The advent of SDG4 put an end to the duality of education agendas that had characterized the prior decade as a result of the coexistence of two separate goal sets –the Education for All (EFA) goals and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Crafting SDG4 thus meant, in practice, combining the decision-making procedures specific to the EFA architecture with the myriad of negotiation processes set in motion within UN circles as a continuation of the MDGs. This proved a challenging endeavor, for it required finding common ground between different normative assumptions and expectations on the legitimate locus of power. Thus, some of the major persistent disagreements that emerged during the making of SDG4 did not revolve around the very content of the targets – but on the decision-making structures and deliberation scripts on which their negotiation relied. Drawing on a corpus of 99 interviews with key negotiators of the SDG4 agenda, this paper analyzes some of the key issues around which such tensions crystallized. The presentation hence systematizes the main sources of divergence that riddled the process, and identifies a number of consensus-building mechanisms that proved key in the emergence of a unified architecture and the harmonization of competing demands – namely, role-blurring, delegation and nesting.   Inclusion as Quality? Inclusion or Quality? – A look at SDG 4 William C. Smith, University of Edinburgh Three main concepts are including in the overarching aim of SDG 4 – “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” – (1) inclusive, (2) equitable, and (3) quality. Whether these are treated as separate components or necessary for, and thus indistinguishable from, each other has significant ramifications for how education plays out in practice. Reviewing documents from key meetings the fed into the development of the Sustainable Development Goal for education, this research explores how quality and inclusion were defined and related in these precursory meetings. The formalization of SDG 4 in 2015 appeared to mark a milestone in inclusive education – transitioning from a narrow movement focused solely on special education to a broader recognition that barriers are present and must be removed for a wide range of learners. Unfortunately, as the principle of inclusion in SDG 4 was put into practice, the big tent coalition and understanding of inclusion as quality appears to have broken down. Results suggest that renewed efforts are needed to move beyond competing agendas and re-center inclusion at the heart of quality. Constructing known un-knowns: International Organisations and the strategic making of non-knowledge Sotiria Grek, University of Edinburgh Although scholarship has devoted a lot of attention to statistical knowledge production by organisations like the OECD, the World Bank, UNESCO and many others, we know far less about parallel processes of construction of ‘non-knowledge’. This article’s focus is on the enactment of ‘non-knowledge’ in the governance of education and well-being; or, in other words, the strategic prioritization of certain knowledge versus other. Specifically, through a focus on two empirical examples (including one from SDG 4), the paper examines the construction of non-knowledge as an essential part of the measurement process: rather than the opposite of knowledge however, or its reading as a binary, the paper views the construction of both knowledge and non-knowledge as a symbiotic relationship, necessary for balancing out and achieving equilibrium of the metrological field.