This week, the Network for Social and Educational Equity (NSEE) at the Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change (ROC) welcomed guests from the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore who visited the University of Glasgow to find out more about our work helping educational systems improve practice.
The NIE is Singapore’s national teacher education institute and an integral part of the nation’s education service. The Institution plays a key role in the preparation of teachers and in the provision of teacher professional and school leadership development programmes.
It has a strong partnership with Singapore’s Ministry of Education and schools in Singapore and offers masters and doctoral programmes for local and international students. Its educational research advances theory and policy thinking.
Pedagogy and practice
The visitors included Dr Dennis Kwek, centre director of the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, Dr Uma Natarajan, Dr Wong Hwei Ming, the centre’s assessment for learning expert and programme director for Schools, Leadership and System Studies and Dr Andrew Pereira, the programme director for Teacher Professionalism and Learning, with a research focus on teacher PD, teacher affect/emotions.
The purpose of the visit was to find out more about the NSEE team’s work with the West Partnership, Scotland’s largest Regional Improvement Collaborative, which covers a third of the school population in Scotland, and the Every Dundee Learner Matters strategy with Dundee City Council.
Another area of interest was The University of Glasgow’s Educational Assessments Networks (UGEAN), which is concerned with one of the most powerful drivers in education systems internationally—assessment. UGEAN’s work is designed to inform and develop the use of assessment as a means of promoting social justice: to make a real difference to policy and to practice.
Poverty reduction approaches
They were also here to discover more about Children’s Neighbourhood Scotland—place-based approaches to reduce poverty and increase participation within communities, strengthening the voices and priorities of children and young people, and supporting partnerships and collaboration between organisations and services to enable change.