ISCEST 2014 Keynote Speaker : Professor David Turner
Professor David Turner, MA, PhD, PGCE, AcSS, FRSA
Professor David Turner recently ends his term as the Treasurer for the World Council of Comparative Education Societies. He is an emeritus professor in the Faculty of Business and Society, University of South Wales, UK and a visiting professor at a number of universities across the globe.
After graduating in engineering, Professor Turner became a science teacher in secondary schools for nine years, before moving into teaching in higher education.
He has taught in a variety of higher education institutions, teaching comparative education at the University of London Institute of Education before moving to the School for Independent Study at the North East London Polytechnic, now University of East London, UK. His book, Theory of Education, presented a novel approach to viewing education as a complex system, which is shaped by the choices that individuals within the system make.
The book was very well received and won the World Education Fellowship Book Award in 2005/6. That book was followed by Theory and Practice of Education, published in 2007.
Professor Turner believes that the role of theory in education is to provide a coherent and stringent critique of policy, and by that means to provide a framework for improving educational institutions. He is critical of much current policy in education, including the desire to see institutions ranked in league tables. He is committed to the view that the education system needs to accommodate diversity in all its expressions.
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