Curriculum Change And Social Cohesion In Conflict Affected Societies: Project Team

BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA

Philip Stabback is an experienced Australian education administrator who was attached to the UNESCO field office in Sarajevo as a senior education expert from August 2001 to June 2002, and was then the interim director of education in the Organisation for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) during July and August 2002. In this latter role, he was responsible for establishing the inclusive consultation structures and mechanisms that led to the development of the Education Reform Strategy Paper (November, 2002).

GUATEMALA

Manuel de Jesús Salazar Tetzaguic is the national coordinator for the Project to Mobilise Support for Mayan Education (PROMEM) and, in this capacity, is now contributing to the development of the curriculum proposal requested to PROMEM by the Ministry of Education for the inclusion of Mayan culture and language in the National Curriculum of Basic Education. He is a member of the Parity Commission in charge of the implementation of the peace accords, as well as a member of the Parity Commission for Educational Reform, and he is a well-respected Mayan scholar.

 

He is supported by his colleague, Katherine Grigsby, UNESCO chief technical adviser for PROMEM, in charge of the implementation of innovative practices of Mayan bilingual and intercultural education and of the preparation of the curriculum proposal to include Mayan culture and language in the National Curriculum of Basic Education. She has collaborated with UNESCO in various positions since 1994 and has authored education materials and several articles.

LEBANON

Nemer Frayha was the president of the Educational Centre for Research and Development (ECRD) in Beirut during the implementation of the Civics Education Project and the development of the history curriculum, from February 1999 to January 2002. The ECRD was established in 1971 and is in charge of educational planning, educational research and statistics, the revision and development of school curricula, and the writing of textbooks, as well as the in-service training of teachers. The centre was responsible for framing the Plan for Educational Revival in 1994 following the end of the civil war in 1989. Dr. Frayha is currently a professor in the Faculty of Education at the Lebanese University.

MOZAMBIQUE

Juvenal Balegamire Bazilashe is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. Previously, he lectured in the Teachers’ Training College of Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, for eight years, and in the Education Institute of the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, for three years. He has prepared critical analyses of African educational systems for the UNESCO International Bureau of Education in Geneva and for NGOs such as Christian Aid and ActionAid. He has written a text on the educational system of Mozambique, proposing a bridge between education, literacy, and vocational training, where leaders freely chosen or coopted by the peasants would use an integrated management of the different resources and initiatives (such as training, health, sources of energy, and water management) in sustainable villages aimed at self-reliance.

 

Adelaide Dhorsan  is an educational officer at the National Institute for the Development of Education (INDE) in Maputo and is in charge of designing the new curriculum and overseeing its implementation. The institute was created in 1978 as a specialised institution, under the authority of the Ministry of Education, but with academic and administrative autonomy. The institute is responsible for translating policy decisions through the development of curricula, syllabi, textbooks, and other teaching and learning materials. Adelaide Dhorsan is actively involved in projects related to the Bilingual Education program involving teacher training, the selection of experimental primary schools, and the implementation and monitoring of bilingual education. She also teaches general linguistics and applied linguistics with a focus on education in the French Department, Faculty of Languages, at the Pedagogical University in Maputo. Adelaide Dhorsan holds a master’s degree awarded by the University Paul Valérie–Montpellier III in sociolinguistics and is working on her PhD thesis relative to Diglossic Bilingualism in Southern Mozambique.

 

Cristina Augusto Tembe lectures in the Curriculum Development Department of the Faculty of Education at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. Previously she lectured on reading and writing techniques in the Faculty of Education at the Pedagogical University in Maputo for two years. She has also worked on curriculum planning at the National Institute for Development of Education, participating in the writing of Portuguese-language textbooks and teachers’ guides for thirteen years. She has authored an article entitled “The Acquisition of Portuguese as a Second Language.” In addition, she has been involved in planning and training at the teacher training colleges for three years. She is a former member of the Technical Committee for Basic Education at the SADC level (serving for two years) and for two years was national director for basic education in Mozambique.