INTERNATIONAL  EDUCATION CONFERENCE

Keynote 1

Professor John Fien (Australia)
Swinburne Leadership Institute, Australia

A graduate of the University of Queensland (B.A., Ph.D.) and the University of London (M.A.), Professor John Fien was appointed Executive Director of the Swinburne Leadership Institute in September 2013. Previous positions have involved leadership roles as an Associate Dean (Academic), Research Centre Director and CRC Program Leader at Griffith University (1996-2004) and as Professor of Sustainability in RMIT’s Innovation Leadership Program (2005-2013). Professor Fien has extensive international experience in education. He was a member of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO and has represented Australia at numerous international conferences, and organized regional and international twelve symposia for UNESCO in Paris, Bonn, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Tokyo, Bangkok, Melbourne and Brisbane. He has also been a resource person for UNESCO at meetings of the Commission for Sustainable Development in New York and at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. He wrote the UN position papers on education for 2002 Rio+10 World Summit on Sustainable Development and the 2012 Rio+20 World Conference on Sustainable Development. As a policy facilitator, Professor Fien was extensively involved in the establishment of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), writing both the framework document and the UNESCO international action plan, participating in the Mid-Decade Review in 2009 and contributing to the end-of-Decade evaluation. He also wrote and designed the UNESCO multimedia teacher education program, Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future

Keynote 2

Professor Konai Helu Thaman (Pacific)

UNESCO Chair of Teacher Education and Culture, USP

Konai Helu Thaman is a current Professor of Pacific Education and Culture and the UNESCO Chair in teacher education and culture at the University of the South Pacific (USP), a regional institution owned by 12 Pacific Island Nations. She received her school education in Tonga and tertiary education in New Zealand (B.A. Auckland University), California (M.A. in International Education at University of California, Santa Barbara), and the USP (Ph.D. in Education). Her current teaching and research interests are in indigenous education and culturally inclusive teaching, curriculum and research. Konai Helu Thaman is currently involved with other colleagues in documenting Pacific indigenous educational ideas and pedagogies, and developing Pacific frameworks and methodologies for research. She has researched and published in the areas of curriculum development, indigenous knowledge systems, culturally democratic teacher education and sustainable development. She is a member of several international organisations including The Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers and Higher Education Personnel (CEART), a Fellow of the Asia Pacific Centre for Innovations in Education & Development (APEID) and Oceania vice-chair for the IUCN Commission on Education & Communication. In her spare time, Konai enjoys writing poetry and 5 collections of her poems have been published.