Hands across the world

​​Professor Emeritus Denise Hevey and Senior Lecturer Eleonora Teszenyi recently presented the Vice Chancellor, Nick Petford, with a crystal trophy on their return from two weeks as visiting professor and lecturer at the Abay Kazakh National Pedagogical University in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The trophy, which depicts joined hands of friendship across the globe, was a gift from the Rector of Abay Kazakh NPU as a token of his appreciation of the developing relationship with the School of Education at the University of Northampton.

Three years ago two Abay Kazakh academics spent 10 months as interns with the Early Years team under the prestigious Bolashak scholarship scheme.

During their internship they observed and contributed to teaching sessions, participated in research seminars, experienced visits and placements in a range of early years and SEN services and undertook small scale research projects. In fact they quickly became an integral part of the life of the School.

All this experience was fed back to colleagues at Abay Kazakh NPU who then determined to seek appropriate funding to fly Prof Hevey and her colleague over to teach for two weeks.

The weather was kind, the welcome was warm and the hospitality generous. The seminar and workshop programme, which was very positively evaluated, was targeted mainly at post-graduate students and academic staff and covered broader issues in teaching and research in HE, not just early years. Abay Kazakh NPU are now participating in a multi-national narrative research project led by the University of Northampton and it is hoped that this is just the beginning of a growing, long term collaborative relationship.