£50k for Research into EMI, Equity & Access

The OU’s Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET) has been successful in attracting £50K of funding to enter into a research partnership with the British Council and CfBT Education Trust to undertake research into the role of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in low-income countries.

The proposed project, English Medium Instruction (EMI) in Lower and Middle Income Countries (LMICs): Opportunities and Challenges in Ghana and India, will investigate the evidence for the potential of EMI to improve equity and access to schooling that results in better educational and life chances, particularly for disadvantaged groups in Ghana and India. It will have two main phases, the first of which will consist of a systematic literature review focusing on EMI in LMICs, led by Elizabeth Erling. This will be followed by fieldwork in Ghana and India, which will be led by Alison Buckler and Lina Adinolfi respectively. Kristina Hultgren will offer her theoretical and methodological expertise throughout, and support the write-up. The funding will be used in part towards employing fieldworkers in Ghana and India, and also towards a Research Assistant to support the literature review.

This is an exciting research collaboration in that it has enabled a new research partnership with two external institutions. It also brings together a research team from across FELS and OU Research Clusters, and is the first FELS venture that can be seen as contributing to the themes of the Strategic Research Area (SRA) in Global Development and Inclusive Innovation. Both Profs Theresa Lillis (CREET/ Department of Applied Linguistics and English Language) and Giles Mohan (IKD/DPP) were instrumental in supporting the bid, and will be on the advisory board for the project. It is hoped that the research outputs from the project will position FELS well to bid for further research into EMI in LMICs.