About Quality Education
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Our work on SDG Goal 4: Quality Education
We work towards the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 4 - Quality Education, to create a better and fairer world.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted in 2015 by all United Nations member states. It provides a blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet.
Find out more about our work across all the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.
Research
Stirling Centre for Research into Curriculum Making
The notion of curriculum making is based upon the premise that curricula are constructed – made – across multiple sites of activity within education systems, and that curriculum can be studied as social practice. The Stirling Centre for Research into Curriculum Making (SCRCM) develops and undertakes original research into curriculum making, engages in knowledge exchange with policy makers and practitioners to develop the curriculum across education systems, and disseminates research through face-to-face events and webinars.
Supporting multilingualism in practice: resource co-creation in primary classrooms in Tanzania
This project is funded through the British Academy’s Maximising Impact Programme and is led by the University of Essex, with collaborators at the University of Stirling, St John’s University of Tanzania, and the University of Dar es Salaam.
The project builds on the British Academy funded project – “Bringing the outside in: Merging local language and literacy practices to enhance classroom learning and achievement”. This initial research investigated the role of multilingualism in education systems in Botswana, Tanzania, and Zambia. Key findings from this project were that monolingual language-in-education policies do not support learning in multilingual contexts, with multilingual students, and teachers identifying training and resources which focus on multilingual pedagogies as a key need in their professional development and capacity building.
The current project seeks to work with teachers and students in Tanzania to co-create multilingual learning materials for the classroom as well as strategies for training teachers in the use of multilingual pedagogies. To date, the research team have conducted two workshops with 30 teachers from 8 primary schools in the Tabora and Ruvuma regions of Tanzania.
Collaborators and participants in the project will directly benefit in strengthening capacity in the local research environment, the provision of teacher training and intervention in education.
Learning and teaching
Innovation in learning spaces through technologies and pedagogy
Taking our lessons learned during online and hybrid learning during the pandemic, Information Services at the University of Stirling led a transformative, multi-million-pound project to deliver a state-of-the-art technology and AV solution in learning spaces across the campus.
Learning spaces are equipped for all modes of teaching, but critically, are facilitating emerging pedagogies in active and blended learning. Implemented alongside a schedule of physical refurbishments, the project exploits the synergies between technology, flexible furniture, lighting and colour to enhance the learning ambience and environment.
The combination of highly functional, flexible and standardised AV and learning technologies, in parallel with learning and teaching enhancement specialists directly training academics from a pedagogical perspective is leading to an enhanced learning and student experience across the institution.
Enhancing curriculum making through the Stirling Centre for Research into Curriculum Making
The Stirling Centre for Research into Curriculum Making develops and undertakes original research into curriculum making, engages in knowledge exchange with policymakers and practitioners to develop the curriculum across education systems, and disseminates research through face-to-face events and webinars.
Since October 2023, the SCRCM has hosted four in-person seminar events which have brought together over 150 participants including teachers, teacher educators, policy makers and researchers exploring themes such as decolonising the curriculum, children’s rights and agency and inclusive education. In addition, a series of online seminars, including contributions by internationally respected researchers, have engaged a further 620 practitioners, policymakers and researchers from across the world.
These professional learning opportunities have better equipped researchers, policymakers, teachers and educators in other settings in relation to curriculum making and development which is a fundamental aspect of ensuring high quality education systems.
Professional and leadership education
The University’s postgraduate taught programmes, MSc Professional Education and Leadership and MSc Educational Leadership are nationally recognised programmes, accredited by the General Teaching Council for Scotland.
For over a decade, the MSc Professional Education and Leadership programme has equipped hundreds of middle leaders in education settings including schools, colleges and other professional contexts (for example, Armed Forces, Emergency Services) to lead the learning of other professionals, through a critically engaged, research-informed programme designed for professionals who educate, thus enhancing the quality of professional education in their settings.
At the same time, the MSc Educational Leadership programme ensures that Scotland’s headteachers (approximately 500 to date) have the knowledge and understanding to put informed strategic vision, values and aims into practice – helping head teachers to lead change for improvement in their schools that realises the highest quality education for children and young people across Scotland.
University operations
Contextual admissions
Stirling’s contextual approach to admissions assesses applications in conjunction with personal and educational circumstances and has been fully implemented since 2019. Eligible applicants from underrepresented groups are considered for an offer of study at the minimum entry requirements.
The University believes it is important to be responsive to individual circumstances as much as possible within the admissions process, and the contextual admissions approach is one element of this.
The University of Stirling is committed to the following principles:
- selection of students based on academic and personal merit;
- transparency;
- consistency;
- reliable and credible selection methods;
- reducing barriers to admission;
- professionalism.
Learning and Teaching Conference
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement team has hosted the University’s Learning and Teaching Conference for four years, welcoming prestigious keynotes who have spoken on a range of themes such as inclusivity and belonging for students of different backgrounds, disruptive student partnerships and co-created learning, artificial intelligence, student engagement and e-learning.
Global Cafe
Global Cafe, based in the University Chaplaincy, is run by volunteers from Friends International Stirling and provides a range of social events and activities for international students. Global Cafe is a fun and relaxed space for international students to make new friends from around the world and connect with the local community.
The goal of Global Cafe is to provide a home away from home, or family away from family. The weekly gathering over tea and coffee allows friendships to grow, while conversations help with English language practice. Carefully selected volunteers from the local community help create a safe space where students are cared for, supported and encouraged during their time at university.
Civic engagement
Young Pathfinders
Young Pathfinders is an educational outreach programme, which empowers young people from Stirling and Clackmannanshire to make a positive impact on their communities and the world. This innovative, extracurricular environmental education initiative is tailored for young people, with the goal of fostering the next generation of eco-conscious leaders. The programme equips students with essential knowledge, skills, and tools to make a positive impact.
Learning for Sustainability in Initial Teacher Education
Since August 2023, Professor Lizzie Rushton has served as lead for Learning for Sustainability (LfS) for the Scottish Council of Deans of Education including leadership of a new national working group. Consistent with the Scottish Government’s Learning for Sustainability Action Plan 2023-2030, a key priority has been to create a single national approach to support LfS within Initial Teacher Education (ITE) (Action 24).
Through Professor Rushton’s leadership, the national working group has involved over thirty people. This has included teacher educators from each of the eleven HEIs in Scotland which have ITE programme as well as experts from the General Teaching Council Scotland, Learning for Sustainability Scotland and Education Scotland. Through a process of co-creation which has involved five workshops, a research-informed national framework for LfS in ITE has been developed. The research which underpins this national framework includes expertise of academics based at Stirling, including Professor Lizzie Rushton, Professor Mark Priestley and Professor Greg Mannion.
The framework is now in the first phase of guiding the education of student teachers across Scotland and providing school-based mentors and university-based teacher educators with vital support to realise the LfS as an entitlement for all children and young people.
Climate change and sustainability education through curriculum making
Research and international reports, including those co-authored by Professor Lizzie Rushton, have underlined the importance of teachers accessing high-quality professional learning related to climate change and sustainability education (CCSE) (Rushton et al., 2023; Rushton et al., 2024). In response to this need, Professor Lizzie Rushton has led a programme of professional learning for educators in Scotland to develop their expertise and agency in relation to school-based CCSE.
The programme involves six afternoon taught sessions, based at the University of Stirling, is funded by Scotland’s International Environment Centre and is taught by Professor Lizzie Rushton, Dr Valerie Drew and Professor Mark Priestley. Over fifty people have participated, including teachers, university-based teacher educators, and educators based in third sector settings and organisations, including Education Scotland.
Each participant has an area of leadership and/or responsibility such that they can lead ongoing change in relation to CCSE in their setting, including building the professional learning capacity of their colleagues. For example, participants include head teachers, deputy head teachers, programme directors and education officers working across Scotland.
In this way, this programme has enhanced the professional learning of hundreds of educators, working with thousands of children and young people.