Iram Siraj is a Professor of Child Development and Education, University of Oxford (SRF at Jesus College) and a Research Professor at the University of Wollongong in Australia until the end of 2018; Siraj is on the Technical Advisory Group for the lead Australian Council for Educational Research group, which won the OECD IELS international pilot study (plus NFER England study) on the specialty of child measures.
Dr.Iram worked as a preschool, primary, and advisory teacher. For the last 30 years as a researcher and academic with Warwick, London, and Oxford universities. She gained her doctorate in 1995 from Warwick University, and Iram was awarded an OBE for services to ECEC in 2015.
As an ECEC specialist with an international reputation for longitudinal research and policy expertise, she has co-directed several influential studies, including:
Effective Provision of Pre-school, Primary, and Secondary Education(EPPSE, DfE, 1997-2014) study
Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY, DfE, 2002) study,
Effective Leadership in the Early Years Sector (ELEYS) Study.
She has also studied Effective Early Educational Experiences in Australia (E4Kids, Australian Research Council, and Victoria and Queensland Governments. 2009-2015).
Her recent studies on professional development are cluster randomized controlled trials of evidence-based interventions looking at the impact of evidence-based professional development in 90 centers in New South Wales, Fostering Effective Early Learning; Researching Effective Environments for Learning in 70 centers in Victoria, and Using Research tools to Promote Language in the Early Years in 120 schools in England. She has been a Principal Investigator on well over £25 million in research grants.
She has undertaken government reviews of the Welsh Foundation Phase (2014) and the Scottish Early Years’ Workforce (2015). Her Work on Disadvantage includes two C4EO high-level reviews of what families and integrated working contribute to child outcomes for under-fives. She has written award-winning books among her many published works, including Social Class and Educational Inequality the Role of Parents and Schools (Cambridge Uni Press, 2015) and Effective and Caring Leadership in the Early Years (Sage, 2014).
Additionally, Dr. Iram has over 250 publications, including three widely used rating scales which have predictive validity and measure the quality of pedagogy in ECEC enhancing child outcomes in the cognitive (ECERS-E 4th Ed. 2010), social-emotional (SSTEW, 2015), and physical (MOVERS, 2017) domains. Dr. Iram’s most recent book, Teaching in Effective Primary Schools: Research into Pedagogy and Children’s Learning (Siraj et al. 2019) by UCL-IOE Press.
These measurements are currently being used in more than 25 countries, including Australia, to enhance professional staff development. Her current studies include leadership in low/middle-income countries (World Bank), an RCT using MOVERS (40 centers, Victorian Govt), and Adult-child Interactions using IT apps (ARC).
Iram’s policy work has included being on the Advisory Group for the Welsh Government advising four ministers; Victorian and South Aus., Governments Education Advisory Groups; specialist advisor to the House of Commons Select Committee on Children’s Centers. Dr. Siraj has provided advice, projects, and keynotes to UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, OECD, Bernard van Leer, and Aga Khan Foundations and provided to governments overseas, including Chile, Australia, New Zealand, HK, Singapore, China, Scotland, Norway, and Portugal. Dr. Iram is visiting professor at the universities of Stavanger and Wollongong.
+971 2 445 9442
el.info@khaward.ae