My background:
- Doctorate from UCL, Institute of Education, University of London; awarded Director's Prize in 2008.
- Many years' experience teaching undergraduates and postgraduates at London University and in Singapore.
- While working on my PhD, I presented papers on professionalism and accountability at university conferences in London, Oxford, Edinburgh and Dublin.
- More recently I have been running postgraduate seminars on Professional Ethics, and Values in Professionalism at UCL, Institute of Education, London University; and in leading workshops for educationalists, teachers and head teachers at the annual Summer National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference.
My field of expertise is the nature of professional practice and its relation to professional ethics, as well as more general philosophical issues relating to professionalism, accountability and responsibility.
As well as practical experience in conducting large and small seminar groups at postgraduate level, in both formal and informal contexts, I am able to draw on much theoretical, academic knowledge, gained through MA and PhD scholarship which is reflected in my publications
I have published widely. My book Education, Professionalism and the Quest for Accountability: Hitting the Target but Missing the Point (Routledge, New York, 2011), and a number of journal articles and chapters in edited collections, explore the impact which the present ‘high-stakes’ accountability system has on professional practice, judgement and integrity.
The aim of my publications has been twofold: (i) to critique the widespread managerial practice of setting short-term institutional targets as a way of regulating professionals; and (ii) to explore how to rectify the kind of organisational cultures that result from such short-term, target-setting practices and which, as witnessed in recent financial and banking scandals, so easily lead to unintended and unethical consequences.