OUC professor gets prestigious Commonwealth post

An Open University of Cyprus professor has been awarded the prestigious honorary position as Commonwealth of Learning (COL) chair.

The term, granted to professor of the Educational Studies programme of the Open University of Cyprus Michalinos Zembylas usually lasts for three years, and his focus will be peace education and decolonisation.

It aims to enhance the role of peace education as entangled with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) in building future sustainable peace by connecting and comparing findings from four case study countries. These are Cyprus, Israel/Palestine, North Ireland and South Africa.

COL also aims to create Open Educational Resources (OER) that can be used in other Commonwealth countries to support and complement existing peace education curricula.

Zembylas’ main research interests focus on the role of emotion and its affect in curriculum and pedagogy, as well as the development of programmes and teaching, especially related to issues of social justice pedagogies, intercultural and peace education, and human rights education.