Abstract

ABSTRACT The school systems of all developing countries have expanded rapidly over the last decade. The quest to have every child in basic education by 2015 (A Millennium Development Goal) has galvanised governments and international agencies to take action. However the parallel challenge to provide sufficient, well educated, teachers lags some way behind. In many developing countries teacher supply, retention, education and training are verging on crisis. In this context Bob Moon will argue that a radical reform of teacher education structures and systems will be necessary if the life chances of young people are to be improved. In particular he will suggest that the domination of European and North American orthodoxies towards teacher preparation are fostering conservative resistance to change. In making this analysis he will suggest new strategies that need to be embraced, including a rethink of the research priorities currently favoured by international agencies. He will also suggest ways in which the UK Higher Education sector could play a more significant role in responding to the challenge to make global education systems more equitable and just. The presentation will draw on work from the ten country Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) programme that Bob Moon founded and directed as well as his most recent book, ‘Teacher Education and The Challenge of Development’, which was published this year in the series Education, Poverty and International Development edited by Madeleine Arnot and Chris Colclough.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY Bob Moon was a secondary teacher and headteacher of two urban British secondary comprehensive schools before moving into the higher education sector. He was appointed Professor of Education at the Open University in 1988 with the task of developing all aspects of teacher education. His projects have twice won, for the OU, The Queen’s Anniversary Award for Higher Education, most recently in 2009 with The ten country ‘Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa’ (TESSA) programme, an initiative now reaching half a million teachers in all parts of the continent. Bob Moon has been an adviser to many national governments and international organisations, (including OECD , DFID, EU, UNESCO , UNICEF, UNRWA and The World Bank) He has written extensively on curriculum teaching and international aspects of education. His most recent books include ‘The Power of Pedagogy’, with the late Professor Jenny Leach and ‘Teacher Education and the Challenge of Development: A Global Analysis’. In 2012, in recognition of his work in education, he was appointed to The Academy of Social Sciences.

http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/cce/events/seminars.html