'Small States' conference draws international audience

Delegates from member states in the Commonwealth of Nations were among a large international audience at the University’s Graduate School of Education, which recently hosted a conference on ‘Educational Policies and Priorities in Commonwealth Small States’.
The event, jointly organised by the University’s Centre for International and Comparative Studies and the Council for Education in the Commonwealth (CEC), brought together key figures from the field of comparative and international education with Commonwealth agency personnel, government representatives, Commonwealth Scholarship holders and postgraduates from across the UK.

Professor Michael Crossley, Director of the Education in Small States Research Group, and colleagues Steve Packer and Terra Sprague presented the initial findings from a research project funded by the Commonwealth Secretariat that addresses the challenges faced by Commonwealth small states.

They considered contexts such as climate change, global economics, and the impact of information and communication technologies, and explored the implications for educational policies and priorities in education, and for future international collaboration and research.

Panellists from several small states, including government figureheads and practitioners, responded with insight and candour about what this research means for their contexts. This provoked perceptive contributions and questions from the audience.

The full research report, ‘Educational Policies and Priorities in Commonwealth Small States’, will be published in book form by the Commonwealth Secretariat later this year.

 

 

 

Further information
The ‘Educational Policies and Priorities in Commonwealth Small States’ study, led by Professor Michael Crossley, has been carried out in collaboration with Professor Mark Bray, Director of UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning in Paris.