Hamdella: Egypt, partnerships, and comparative education

According to my passport, the last time I was in Egypt was August 2019. I was three days from coming to Egypt in March 2020 when COVID-19 hit and all my plans were changed. Today, I arrived back in Cairo for the first time in nearly four years. I have heard "hamdella" [welcome] from those I know. It's a wonderful word.

I am here for two primary reasons:

1. Discussions with colleagues at the American University of Cairo, considered the best university in the region, regarding potential partnerships and research collaborations. I am meeting with multiple faculty members who have common research interests. I also have meetings with the director of the Education program who I have only met via video conferencing in the past. I am fortunate to have a colleague at Laurier who has a long history with ACU and who has nurtured these connections.

2. Ongoing work with Dover International School, a school that I have worked with for close to 10 years. The director is a former director of a school board in Ontario who I worked with in that context. He retired and took on the role of director of this international school. This May, we have 19 Laurier teacher candidates at Dover. Over the next few days, I'll be working with some of the teachers at Dover who I have had research projects with and also supporting our Laurier teacher candidates as they learn about teaching in a different context than Ontario.

There's always much to learn when you travel. For example, did you know that weekends in Egypt are on Friday/Saturday? The holy day is Friday. My learning will continue on this trip as I find out more about how educators in Egypt engage with topics such as school leadership, innovation, and inclusive education for students with disabilities.

Innovation and inclusion in education: Three aspects from St. Lucia

 I have spent the past week and a half in St. Lucia, 1/3 of that time spent in a conference on innovation in education, 1/3 spent in research team meetings, and another 1/3 spent exploring special education on the island.

First, the conference was the first Caribbean Education Innovation Forum. It was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Connection Grant. The purpose of the forum was to bring a variety of educational stakeholders from the Eastern Caribbean together to discuss innovation in education. There were seven countries involved (as well as four of us from Canada) and each country had a Ministry representative (i.e., a system leader), a principal, and a teacher. The two-day conference included a couple of keynote presentations and many break-out sessions. The value of the break-out sessions were in the variety of approaches: some were role-specific (e.g., all principals met), others were topic-specific (e.g., inclusive education), and others were country-specific (e.g., the three reps from a particular country met to debrief a topic). There were many, many rich conversations. There seemed to be good support for a follow-up step to include applying for a grant that would provide further opportunities for program-development and research on innovation in education.

Second, the research meetings included our International Development Research Council (IDRC) team which is exploring teacher innovation in St. Lucia and Haiti. The team met for two days to debrief the work that has been done over the past 1.5 years in these two contexts and to plan next steps. One action step that I will be contributing will be editing a special issue of a comparative and international education journal to focus on some of the research related to this project. There has been some good progress in St. Lucia and Haiti with teacher innovation projects. We are hoping to be able to leverage the forum we hosted at the beginning of the week and the work we have been doing in St. Lucia and Haiti to scale the Human Centered Design innovation projects in other contexts.

Third, the meetings and discussions related to special education is as a result of some of the lessons we are learning in other contexts such as Ghana and Mauritius. The Ministry of Education in St. Lucia has a small special education unit (six members). I met with the director of the unit and one of the staff. We had a very fruitful meeting (and subsequent discussions) to talk about the history of special education in St. Lucia, the current context and challenges, and hopes for the future. It was a pleasure to be able to connect the director of the special education unit with my colleague in Mauritius who is in the same role and who I have been supporting. There are lots of valuable lessons for special education across small island states and beyond.

It has been a very productive week with excellent discussions, mobilization of information about current effective practices, and brainstorming on possibilities for the future.

Experiences with inclusion and stigmatization in Kumasi, Ghana: We fear what we don't know

We have spent this week in meetings with students with disabilities, as well as their parents, teachers, and school administrators, in Kumasi, Ghana. The research project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and is part of a four year project to explore inclusive education for students with disabilities in Ghana. An anticipated outcome of the project is the development of training resources to help teachers foster inclusive classrooms. Our last research trip to Ghana was in December 2019, just a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic (see previous post).

The activities of this week have led to new insights about inclusive education not only in Ghana but also in Canada. Here are some quotes which really resonated with me:

"It [disability] feels like a punishment."

"We [teachers] are professional beggars [since they have to beg for supplies and resources]."

"When a parent gives birth to a disabled child, you have to really try or your child will die."

"Teachers with disabilities feel rejected."

"I have not had a salary for two years."

"We're draining the family finances."

"If not limited by space, the numbers of students with disabilities we would have would be huge."

"We fear what we don't know."

Research can seem like a "cold" and sanitized process. However, qualitative research that centres the stories and experiences of participants makes the research come alive. Real people are telling compelling stories of challenging, mundane, joyful, everyday, and traumatic experiences.

One 18 year old was burned in an accident at a young age. She was left with significant physical limitations. Yet, she is completing secondary school and is looking for ways to ensure a brighter future.

A child in primary school is able to attend classes because her parents and teachers have committed to ensuring that she can attend school despite her physical restrictions.

A university student told us about how access to a powered wheelchair has allowed him to move across the university campus.

Yet, these are not stories of inspiration. There are daily struggles. Not everyone gets the chance to remain in school. Yesterday, a principal told us of a single-parent who has had to remove her child with a disability from the school because she cannot pay the fees. A common theme across the stories we have heard is of stigma and discrimination that children and young people with disabilities have encountered (and continue to encounter).

There is no doubt that we have made massive progress in supporting students with disabilities in schools. Not that long ago, students with disabilities in Canada and in Ghana were ostracized from schools or placed in segregated settings. This still happens in many parts of Ghana. In Canada, children still experience segregation from other children. But progress is being made. We must continue to fight for the right of every child to belong in their community school.

Returning to international research after Covid-19

I have been "missing in action" as far as writing in this blog for the past two years. I blame Covid-19 but it might also be a reflection of the sense of "pause" that much of my life has been under during this time. 

My international research projects took many different directions during Covid-19. One large project in Haiti, funded by the Canadian government (SSHRC), has been on hold since I am not able to currently travel to Haiti and that project requires more interaction on-the-ground with partners. Another one that involves Haitian partners continued but we were able to engage in research meetings in other countries. Work in other contexts such as Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, and Ethiopia were all on hold. Two other projects involving more remote-based work, one in Mauritius and the other in sub-Saharan Africa, were able to be successfully completed by mid-2022.

This fall, opportunities for travel started ramping up in earnest. I traveled to Mauritius to work with the Special Education Needs Authority (Ministry of Education) in launching their new effort to support all children, regardless of need or strength, in their neighourhood schools. Being on-the-ground in Mauritius reminded me of the incredible privilege involved in international research partnerships.

I am now in Ghana, about to board a flight to Kumasi, where we will be working on an inclusive education project. In fact, the last international trip I took prior to the Covid-19 pandemic was to Ghana where we worked in Accra and Tamale. Being back in Ghana is wonderful but bitter-sweeet. Since we were last here in December 2019, our key research partner in Tamale, Sayibu Imoro, has passed away. He was a huge champion for inclusive education.

After returning to Canada at the end of February, I will be traveling to St. Lucia to meet with the partners on an IDRC-funded project. We have just submitted a proposal to SSHRC to extend/scale the project on teacher innovation that we have been working on in St. Lucia and Haiti. If funded, it would enable us to support innovation projects in education in other contexts in the Caribbean.

Covid-19 has certainly caused many pauses in international research projects and, unfortunately, many more negative and sobering consequences. However, a pause, just like a time-out in basketball, can be a time to reflect, re-group, and re-strategize on key steps forward. I'm very thankful for the privilege to be engaged in re-imagining international research partnerships and projects going forward.