Marcelo Staricoff with colleagues from the Tashkent State Pedagogical University in Uzbekistan

Through the successful delivery of sessions designed to shape teaching and learning strategies and pedagogies in both teacher training and schools in Uzbekistan, Professor Simon Thompson (Head of the School of Education and Social Work) and Dr Marcelo Staricoff (Lecturer in Primary Education) have strengthened collaboration between the School of Education & Social Work at the University of Sussex and both the Bukhara State Pedagogical Institute and Tashkent State Pedagogical University in Uzbekistan.

A series of workshops, lectures and seminars delivered in person built on those previously delivered virtually by Marcelo from 2018-23 on behalf of UNICEF to support the Minsitry of Education in Tashkent in introducing a new reformed national curriculum.  The in-person sessions were rooted in the principles and philosophies underpinning ‘The Joy of Not Knowing’, a book written by Marcelo and published by Routledge (2021).

The sessions that Simon and Marcelo delivered were designed to build new knowledge strands and develop the skills of student teachers in Uzbekistan to enable them to embrace and deliver the reformed curriculum as teachers in schools. Their visit to Uzbekistan followed a visit by four senior faculty members from the Bukhara State Pedagogical Institute to Sussex in October 2023.

Sussex Education faculty will continue to support the Bukhara State Pedagogical Institute and Tashkent State Pedagogical University via remote meetings, and by making and facilitating future visits as part of a long-term strategic collaboration between the three institutions.

Marcelo will lead a workshop at the Sussex Festival of Learning this summer to disseminate the experiences he and Simon gained during their time in Uzbekistan, and discuss how the model developed can act as a model for others wishing to develop similar international collaborations.

Describing his experience of working in Uzbekistan, Marcelo said:

“This experience has, without any doubt, been one of the most meaningful, special, exciting, rewarding and significant of my life. And it’s one that I hope will keep growing in terms of all the benefits that these international collaborations bring to all. I have come back with so many ideas and learnt so much from being able to observe the teaching and learning sessions in both the Bukhara and Tashkent institutions.”

Funding for Simon and Marcelo’s trip –- was secured through successful application to the Knowledge Exchange Capacity Building Fund.