Dr Jennifer Jomafuvwe Agbaire

Dr Jennifer Jomafuvwe Agbaire is a Lecturer in Education at the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies at The Open University. She is currently the Chair of the Open University’s Masters in Education Stage 2 Inclusive Practice module (EE845) and the Deputy Chair of the dissertation module (EE822).   Jennifer is also part of the Core Management team of the Centre for the Study of Global Development (CSGD) at the Open University, co-leading Early Career Researcher (ECR) development for the Centre.

With a background in Comparative and International Education, and Development, Jennifer has been doing teaching, research, impact and knowledge exchange work around issues of social inequalities, educational inclusion, equity and social justice for over ten years – her work has particularly stemmed from her interest in marginalised (personal and professional) identities in education and society.  Over time, her interest and work have also become vested in community-centred creative, co-creative and innovative research approaches as well as the ethics and inclusivity of research and professional practices.  She is involved in interdisciplinary and multi-partnership projects in these areas, and her experience span access, policy, leadership, teaching and teacher education across all levels of education.

Jennifer is a core researcher of the Ibali Network for which her recent work include managing the AHRC-funded Ibali project that  uses a storytelling approach to explore the educational inclusion of young people in Nigeria, South Africa and the UK. Her recent work  further include research on an IDRC-funded multi-country project on school leadership using the Improvement Science approach and working with development partner organisations -Worldreader, SUMMA and FIT-ED - in Kenya, Chile and the Philippines; community engagement with marginalised key populations in Uganda in partnership with Ahaki and CEHURD; and investigating enhanced quality and equitable continuous professional development  at scale for teachers in partnership with World Vision Zambia – an IDRC-funded research which is an offshoot of the Scottish-government-funded Zambia Education School-based Training  (ZEST) project.

Before joining the Open University, Jennifer worked with the University of Bristol, researching education projects in Iraq, India and Nepal, and with the Centre for Comparative and International Research in Education (CIRE) at Bristol on an IIEP-UNESCO project on systems leadership in times of crisis for inclusive education, drawing on case studies of Jordan, Burkina Faso and Kenya. Jennifer also worked with the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex as Teaching Fellow, and with the Sussex Centre for International Education (CIE) on a collaborative project on youth identities in Pakistan, Nigeria, Lebanon and Senegal. She also co-facilitated the Education and Social Work First-Year PhD support group at Sussex. Earlier, Jennifer has been a secondary school teacher and then a Lecturer and teacher educator in Nigeria, teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Comparative Education, Sociology of Education, Educational Philosophy and the history of education at the University of Benin.

Jennifer is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) and currently Executive Secretary and Trustee of the British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE). She is Editor of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) Blog. She holds a B.A (Ed) degree in English and Literature Education with First Class Honours from the University of Benin, an M.Ed in Comparative Education from the University of Lagos,  and a Postgraduate Certificate in Social Research Methods from the University of Sussex, where she also obtained her PhD researching Nigerian higher education policy for equitable access.