January 6, 2015
Early years expert honoured for services to education
Early childhood expert awarded an OBE for services to education in the Queen’s New Year's Honours.
Professor Siraj’s research is focused on the impact of home learning, staff training, pedagogy, curriculum and assessment of young children's learning and development.
Professor Iram Siraj was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for services to education in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours.
She has lectured in more than 40 countries and is an internationally recognised expert in early childhood education.
She currently divides her time between roles at University College London, Institute of Education, and UOW, where she is Professor of Early Childhood Education and is also a member of UOW’s Early Start Research Institute (ESRI).
Professor Siraj has published more than 70 major research reports, monographs and books and more than 200 peer reviewed articles and book chapters.
Last year the Scottish Government invited Professor Siraj to lead a review of Scotland's early years workforce as part of plans to transform early learning and childcare across Scotland.
She also led the independent stocktake of the Foundation Phase in Wales, published by the Welsh Government in May 2014 and has directed longitudinal studies in England, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Australia.
She is an adviser to governments in UK and other countries and has advised international bodies such as UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank and the Bernard van Leer Foundation.
About Early Start
From the simple premise, “every child deserves the best possible start to life” we are developing the most sophisticated teaching, research and community engagement initiative in higher education. Early Start is a $44million transformational project that aims to create and enrich life opportunities for young Australians from birth – 12 years.
It consists of building a world-class Children’s Discovery Space (Australia’s only example of a USA-styled ‘children’s museum’ promoting learning through play and the importance of life-long learning) due to open in 2015; an international hub for multidisciplinary research, tackling issues as varied as early cognitive development, healthy lifestyles and inspiring creativity in our young; cutting-edge early childhood courses; and a network of preschools across New South Wales which act as test beds for putting pioneering research into practice.