Nigerian Academics visit CPD Education

November saw the arrival of a group of Nigerian academics from the Federal College of Education, Kontagora to CPD Education.  After an intensive week of master classes Muhammad Shaaaba, Director of the college had these comments to make about their visit:

'York St John is a lovely University with great history, inspiring leaders and dedicated staff, whose sense of commitment and friendliness to visitors can best be described as exemplary. York St John University can simply be described as a working academic system with great history of evolutionary success and bright hope for the future.'

The group also attended the Vice Chancellor’s Inauguration, visited York Minster and spent time at Askham Bryan College. It is hoped that the visit will lead to agreements being signed and might pave the way towards academic visits in both directions and lead to more staff development both in York and in Nigeria. 

Find out more about their visit to York St John University.

Student Experience video

Husband and wife team, David and Menna Godfrey, are two of the successful graduates mentioned above. They enrolled on the MA at the same time and have moved through the programme together both achieving a distinction in their dissertations for their Masters in Educational Improvement, Development and Change.

Both were driven to improve their practice in totally different areas. For David, his prime motivation for studying was to improve his practice in training teachers to use music in the teaching of Maths. For Menna, her goal was to improve her early years practice.  

They graduated on the 19th November at the Minster. Click here to listen to their experiences of studying at York St John

Signing ceremony in Nairobi

Africa Nazarene University (ANU), Nairobi signed a Memorandum of Understanding with York St John University in October, 2010. The Vice Chancellor of ANU, Professor Leah Marangu and Deputy Vice Chancellor, David Maughan Brown signed the agreement during a recent visit to the Kenyan capital. The ANU VC has been a strong supporter of the work that has taken place with York St John University and was keen to see this work develop. Dr Mike Calvert, who accompanied the DVC, is a regular visitor of the university and leads staff development events there as well as working with their staff on the PCAP programme.

The MoU will lead to greater collaboration between the two universities and several initiatives are already in the pipeline. Mike is already involved in a voluntary project in Western Province near Lake Victoria involving 25 secondary school teachers and has been asked to deliver more training to staff at ANU in 2011. Research work on action learning sets is due to take place involving Diana Wetherell-Terry, Deputy Dean of the Business School in 2011 and this will add to Diana's successful work at Kabarak University, Nakuru in 2008.