DERC webinar: Reflecting on Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning.

Part of the webinar series of ANGEL partner organisation the Development Education Research Centre, this twilight session, aimed at UK educators, academics and policy makers with an interest in global learning and international school partnerships, will feature discussion inspired by the new Ipsos MORI evaluation of the major British Council / FCDO project that aimed to promote & enact global learning.

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Event background

The Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning programme (2018-22) was a £34.5m programme jointly funded by the British Council and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO, formerly DFID). The programme was co-delivered by the British Council and FCDO and operated across the UK and in 29 overseas countries. It aimed to work with schools, teachers and students to provide young people with the knowledge and awareness to take action on local and global issues and develop their core and transferable skills.

But just how successful was the programme at achieving it's aims?

Ipsos MORI UK, together with its partner Learn More, were commissioned to conduct an independent evaluation of the programme’s impacts across four programme countries - UK, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Kenya and Nepal. The evaluation was one of the most comprehensive and technical ever undertaken on a British Council education programme and used a mixed method approach that included counter factual, difference-in-difference and econometric methodologies. The findings were broad ranging and included hard evidence of student, teacher and policy maker impact in terms of enhanced knowledge and awareness of global learning and core skills, as well as a number of lessons learned.

You can read the report here

Please join DERC to discuss and review the evaluation’s findings with a panel of experts including Professor Douglas Bourn (IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education & Society), Jessica Bruce (Ipsos MORI), Lorenzo Newman (Learn More), Neil Williams (British Council) and Rob Unwin (Development Education Centre South Yorkshire).

Format

This event is to be hosted via Zoom. Registered participants will be emailed a link in the days before the event, and also 30 minutes before as a reminder.

The event will be Chaired by Douglas Bourn, Professor of Development Education at IOE and Director of DERC.

Time after the presentations will be given over to a Q&A and participants will have a chance to register questions for the speakers.

Intended audience

The webinar will be especially relevant to educators, academics and policy makers with an interest in global learning and international school partnerships.

Speaker biographies

Jessica Bruce is Director of Ipsos’s Sustainable Development Research Centre in London which delivers research and evaluations globally on issues across the SDG agenda. She has extensive experience carrying out evaluations, research, and economic analysis and delivering projects for public and private sector clients across the globe on a variety of policy and economic development subjects, such as such as humanitarian crises, education, WASH, energy and environment, and civil society. Her clients include the British Council, the FCDO, the World Bank, Gavi, and UN agencies. She directed the independent evaluation of the CCGL programme.

Lorenzo Newman is Learn More’s Managing Director and a recognised learning expert with 12 years’ experience researching some of the world’s most ambitious education interventions. He has led complex evaluation exercises for the Global Partnership for Education, Sesame Workshop, Save the Children, Right to Play, UNICEF, British Council and many more. Prior to founding Learn More he launched Ashoka’s education programmes in Italy, was a Teach for America teaching fellow, and a senior consultant at PwC. He holds a BA hons in Economics and Politics from Trinity College Dublin and an MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics.

Neil Williams is a Senior Project Manager at British Council London and has worked for the past 12 years managing and delivering the organisations large scale international schools programmes. He led the monitoring and evaluation strategy for Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning and commissioned and oversaw the evaluation of impacts study conducted by Ipsos MORI and Learn More.

Respondent

Rob Unwin is the Global Education Adviser at Development Education Centre (South Yorkshire). Rob oversees projects at DECSY and is involved with DECSY publications and consultancy work as well as P4C training.

Chair

Douglas Bourn is Professor of Development Education at UCL Institute of Education and Director of the Development Education Research Centre. He is the author of Theory and Practice of Development Education (2014) and Understanding Global Skills (2018) and editor of the Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Education and Learning (2020).

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Event organiser

Development Education Research Centre

The Development Education Research Centre (DERC) acts as the hub for knowledge generation, new thinking, quality output and teaching on development education, global learning, education for sustainable development and global citizenship.

As part of its mission to provide learning and networking opportunities for professionals and students of development education, global learning and global citizenship, the Development Education Research Centre runs an ongoing seminar series. Events are held around the Bloomsbury campus, and are free and open to staff, students, alumni and the public. All are welcome to attend. You can view details of previous seminars, including some videos, here.