Archive for December, 2008

Professor Brian Dollery (pictured here) from the School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, the Director of UNE’s Centre for Local Government, is a widely published authority on Australian local government finance and reform.

His new book, Local Government Reform: A Comparative Analysis of Advanced Anglo-American Countries (Edward Elgar, 2008), looks at local government change over the past 20 years in Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, the United States and Canada. Link here to UNE’s news list for more information.

Dr Ingrid Harrington, lecturer in the School of Education, received the 2008 Minister for Education and Training and Australian College of Educators NSW Branch Quality Teaching Award - a citation from the Department of Education and Training for her outstanding service to education. We congratulate Dr Harrington for her excellent professional qualities that serve as a model for students who will become teachers. Her ability to ground theory in practice is inspirational. She raises students’ awareness of diverse learning needs, and issues of social justice, while demonstrating a wonderful capacity to respond to her own students’ individual needs. Link to UNE’s news for more information about Dr Harrington’s award.

Following the win of a $175,000 grant from the DelPHE arm of the British Council, Associate Professor Tom Maxwell and Dr. Charles Kivunja, have joined forces with colleagues at the University of Zambia (UNZA) and Kyambogo University in Uganda (KYU), to conduct a capacity building research project into the feasibility of using multigrade pedagogy to enhance these countries’ capacity to eradicate poverty and disease through the delivery of education for all. The photo on the left shows the UNE research team visiting the staff and students of one of the Community Schools in Lusaka. The school has an enrolment of 131.

The photo on the right shows Assoc. Prof. Maxwell and Dr. Kivunja after a meeting with the Dean, SOE, UNZA and one of his Senior Lecturers front row, with Mr. Pawan Kucita, Chief Education Officer of UNICEF in Zambia, in the back row. Whereas many schools in Zambia and Uganda run classes with combined grades, few of such schools are staffed by teachers trained in the delivery of multigrade pedagogy. The school, whose two classrooms are shown above, has 131 students ranging in age from 6 to 13. The Principal has no Deputy and runs the school with three teachers. None of the teachers has any teacher training, let alone, multigrade pedagogy. While this situation in not the case for all multigrade schools in Zambia, it is similar to that found in some of the multigrade contexts in Uganda, although Uganda is better resourced, on the whole. We refer to this tripartite partnership between the University of Zambia, Uganda and UNE as the ZAUNE Project.

The aim of the ZAUNE Project is to train lecturers in the Teacher Training Universities at UNZA and KYU, in multigrade pedagogy and practice. Assoc. Prof. Tom Maxwell and Dr. Kivunja negotiated this partnership on their visit to Zambia and Uganda in February this year. The grant was won in August. Funded for three years, this project aims to achieve the following outcomes in the first year:

• A situational analysis of multi-grade teaching in the two countries;
• Creation of a multi-grade Teacher Manual (modules for TTC development) as well as other support materials for multi-grade teachers;
• Selected HEI academics and relevant Ministry officials will be trained in action research and multi-grade teaching;
• Creation of undergraduate courses in multi-grade at HEIs with potential for improvement using action research;
• Possible alignment document of the curriculum for multi-grade conditions.
• Advocacy for multi-grade and
• Relationships building amongst academics in three countries as well as Ministry of Education officials, and UNICEF colleagues.
• Create an awareness in Uganda and Zambia about UNE’s capacity to provide training for PhD and other doctoral degrees for students from Uganda and Zambia and attract interest in these two and neighbouring countries

People interested in finding out more about this project can contact Dr. Charles Kivunja on ckivunja@une.edu.au or A/Prof. Maxwell on tmaxwell@une.edu.au.

SYMPOSIUM - New Pathways to Adoption and Diffusion of Primary Industries Innovations 25 November 2008 John Bessant, Professor of Innovation and Technology Management in the Tanaka Business School at Imperial College London, was the keynote speaker at an international symposium on primary industry innovation at the University of New England in November 2008. Link to UNE’s news blog for more information and to Primary Industries Innovation Centre website for additional news.

Fourteen undergraduate women at the University of New England have embarked on a five-month program that will introduce them to the realities of professional life in government administration, business, and law.Last Friday at UNE, the students met the people who are to be their mentors in the “Lucy” program.