Professor invited to join Caribbean education policy group
Tue, 21 Feb 2017 14:00:00 GMT
Professor Paul Miller is the sole UK-based expert on the newly-convened Technical Working Group assembled by the organisation Caribbean Community
A MAJOR project to improve standards in education across 15 Caribbean countries has called on the expertise of the University of Huddersfield’s Professor Paul Miller.
He is the sole UK-based expert invited to join a newly-convened Technical Working Group (TWG) assembled by the organisation Caribbean Community (CARICOM) that will investigate the subjects of educational leadership and technical innovations, leading to policy recommendations.
The process will involve Professor Miller in a series of five two-hour meetings with the group’s other members, recruited from institutions in Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad and the British Virgin Islands. But they are virtual meetings, conducted online, so that he can remain in his office at the University of Huddersfield, where he is Professor of Educational Leadership and Management.
The first meeting has now successfully taken place and members of the TWG settled on its remit to advise CARICOM on the development of policies and standards to guide educational leadership and management at all levels of education; also to suggest samples of curriculums that make education relevant to society’s current and future development.
Special attention will be paid to the qualifications framework and teacher mobility; education and its relevance to industry; plus issues that include teacher development.
Professor Miller said that the invitation to join the CARICOM working group as its International Expert Member came “out of the blue”. However, he is Jamaican-born, has carried out research into Caribbean educational issues and his publications include a chapter providing Caribbean perspectives for the 2016 book Successful School Leadership. He is author-editor of the 2013 book, School Leadership in the Caribbean: perceptions, practices, paradigms. In addition, he was editor for a 2014 special issue of the journal Research in Comparative & International Education dealing with education for all in the Caribbean.
Professor Miller has previously worked with Dr Marcia Stewart, who chairs the eight-strong TWG that he has joined. She is manager of the Joint Board for Teacher Education and Chair of the National College of Educational Leadership (NCEL) in Jamaica.
CARICOM – which is headquartered in Guyana – is a body established in 1973 that draws together the English speaking nations of the Caribbean. As part of its new project to develop polices and standards for education – from school to college and university – it has convened six TWGs. The group joined by Professor Miller has a brief to cover teacher education, curriculum design and leadership.
