Dr Artemi Sakellariadis, Director at the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education (CSIE) has contacted us with the following request:
I supervise a handful of Masters students at the University of Bristol, who are working on their dissertations on Inclusive Education. One of my students has taken on a small research project on how the various routes into teaching in the UK prepare teachers to work in inclusive classrooms. He comes from Turkey and is sponsored by his Ministry of Education, who would like to learn from the UK model of ITE (see information below). He is looking for representatives of School-based and University-based initial teacher education to discuss their perspectives in a half-hour interview within the next fortnight or so. I wonder whether you might be willing to be interviewed, or recommend someone else who might.
Many thanks in anticipation of a swift response. I hope to give the student email addresses of prospective participants next week; he will then contact people with further details and they can decide whether to be interviewed or not. The student has confirmed that he will not pass on personal details to anyone else, will only contact people about this research project, and will delete all personal contact details immediately after.
If you are able to help, you can contact Dr Artemi Sakellariadis at artemi@csie.org.uk.
I am Ridvan Ayhan in Special and Inclusive Education MSc in the University of Bristol. I am sponsored by the Ministry of National Education in Turkey. If you have working experience in teacher training programmes in the UK, I would like to invite you to be a part of my research project. By allocating you half an hour and sharing your understanding about current practices in initial teacher training, you will have an opportunity to introduce your practice on an international scale. I hope that it will be an interesting and beneficial opportunity for all participants. Your contribution to the research will be greatly appreciated.
As in many countries in the world, there is a growing emphasis on inclusive schooling of children in education agenda of Turkey. Despite this emphasis, many issues in relation to promoting inclusive education in schools have been emerging. Interestingly, most of these issues are similar to those of the UK, they represent two quite different educational contexts though. One of the most salient issues is how to train teachers to help them become more confident and competent professionals in inclusive classrooms. This makes the role of teacher training programmes more significant in development process of inclusion.
In my research project, I am seeking for answers of the questions about the strategies of teacher training programmes to improve teachers’ pedagogies for student diversity, their approach to inclusion and its reflection to the programme along with potential barriers to reframing teacher education for inclusive education.