Dates: May 18 – 21, 2023 | Venue: University of Nicosia, Cyprus

The Council for Education in the Commonwealth (CEC), University of Nicosia, Foundation for the Management of European Lifelong Learning, and UNESCO Chair of the University of Nicosia are jointly organising “Education Conference 2023”, on May 18 – May 21, 2023 at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus.

To register to attend, visit the Conference website https://www.unic.ac.cy/commonwealth-education-conference-2023/ and complete the registration form

Conference Aim

To explore the digital transformation of education and how it contributes to greener and more inclusive societies.

Conference Objectives

• Share research and best practices across universities.
• Discuss the effects of the digital transformation in education upon diversity and inclusion.
• Discuss the effects of the digital transformation in education upon sustainability efforts.
• Discuss how the digital transformation in education has affected schools and universities.

Political & Academic Freedom in Commonwealth Africa in the Year of the Youth

Key Note Speaker: Professor Dr Stephen Chan OBE

Date: 13 March 2023, 11:00 – 12:30 GMT | Venue: Committee Room 1, House of Lords, Palace of Westminster, London SW1A 0AA

Download flyer HERE

Commonwealth Africa now reflects the diversity of Africa as a whole. Former Francophonic and Lusophonic colonies are now members alongside the Anglophonic ones. Within these countries are thousands of languages and cultures. But all cohere in a drive for education and an urge to make free choices. These converge.

All universities were closed, ostensibly to prevent violence, during the period of Nigeria's elections in the last part of February. Even so, Nigerian academics are not a persecuted minority as they often are elsewhere, where informed criticism makes professors - and students - vulnerable to persecution and abuse. Academic freedom and political freedom coincide.

It is with great sadness that the Council reports that Kees Maxey, our dedicated Secretary for the whole of the first decade of this century, died on 19 October at the age of 85. He had been in declining health for some time.  His well-attended funeral service took place on November 14 in Brentwood where Kees and Sheila lived.  CEC was represented at the occasion by Peter and Julia Williams.  The Council has made a donation in Kees’s memory to PENHA, the Pastoral and Environment Network in the Horn of Africa of which Kees was an active supporter right up to the time of his death.  (Friends and colleagues who wish to make a donation to PENHA in Kees’s memory may like to use this link: https://kees.muchloved.com

Kees (Cornelius) Richard Maxey gained a degree in Chemistry from St Andrews university and worked as a research chemist in industry for many years. A mid-career change saw him take over as Director of the Africa Educational Trust, which helped provide education opportunity to African students especially those in areas of conflict, including at that time the ‘front-line states’ of southern Africa, and more recently leading to a greater focus on Somalia and the Horn of Africa.