Lillie Kilburn
Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
Blog
Celebrating Three Well-Deserved OBEs for Services to Education
We reflect on the impressive work of recent OBE recipients Pauline Rose, Asyia Kazmi, and Sharath Jeevan.
Authors
The RISE team was incredibly excited to learn that three members of our community had received OBEs in the UK’s 2022 New Year Honours list. Appointments as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, known as OBEs, are given each year by the Queen to recognise exceptional achievements and service to the UK.
The three awardees span the breadth of the RISE community, as they include one researcher, one funder, and one practitioner. Each one of their honours was deeply deserved, and we want to share with you some of the achievements and stories behind these awards.
Pauline Rose
Pauline Rose is the International Research Team Lead on the RISE Ethiopia Country Research Team, and her OBE for services to International Girls’ Education reflects her deep commitment to girls’ education and equity in education.
Likewise, the RISE Ethiopia team has a focus on equity on education from several perspectives. In their analysis of Ethiopia’s national-level reforms aimed at improving learning outcomes, they have examined reforms’ effects on the most marginalised students, including girls.
In January 2020, Professor Rose and other members of the RISE Ethiopia team, in collaboration with the RISE Directorate and Addis Ababa University, took part in a RISE research event in Addis Ababa that showcased this research as well as related work from other RISE teams.
More recently, Professor Rose and others in the RISE Ethiopia team have also explored the effects of the pandemic on students, starting with early work in Spring 2020 on unequal effects of school closures. Their latest work examines how socioemotional learning also plays into equity concerns around school closures.
To learn more about Professor Rose’s contributions to international girls’ education, you can read her reflections on her new honour in a recent blog post for the UKFIET site.
Asyia Kazmi
Asyia Kazmi is the Global Education Policy Lead for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of RISE’s funders. She has been an invaluable advisor to the RISE team and in particular has supported RISE’s efforts to increase the reach and influence of our research.
Her OBE, awarded for services to Education, particularly Girls’ Education, reflects her decades of experience in many facets of education ranging from classroom teaching to advising in the UK government.
Dr Kazmi’s recent RISE Podcast episode features her in conversation with our Research Director, Lant Pritchett. In the episode, she discusses some of the most important lessons she has learned from her work, including the importance of basic literacy and numeracy, the need to build systems that champion quality teaching, and the value of restoring children’s confidence in their own abilities.
Sharath Jeevan
Sharath Jeevan is a long-time friend of RISE and a contributor to RISE work on teacher norms. His OBE was given for services to education, reflecting his work as founder of STiR Education.
Jeevan’s work highlights the importance of intrinsic motivation to sustainably drive change at all levels of education systems. STiR Education, which he led until 2020, is a non-government organisation that focuses on igniting intrinsic motivation at every level of the education system. STiR’s approach focuses on peer networks with teachers, emphasising reflective practice, collegiality, and role modelling to strengthen both motivation and the quality of instruction.
Sharath Jeevan and STiR Education are part of the RISE Community of Practice—a diverse group of practitioners and organisations seeking to improve education systems who come together to share lessons from their experiences and practice.
To read his reflections on his honour, you can visit his LinkedIn page.
RISE blog posts and podcasts reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the organisation or our funders.