Last year during the OCIES AGM, OCIES member Associate Professor Brian D. Denman shared about a new Master’s degree of Comparative and International Education at the University of New England, which includes twinning protocols and flagged potential for OCIES members to be involved as casual contributors to this. Please see details about the programme below.
The Master of Comparative and International Education at the University of New England (UNE) applies the general theories, pedagogies, policies, and practices of comparative and international education with specific emphasis on regional, rural and remote education communities.
The course requires successful completion of 72 credit points typical of a regular master’s degree and is to be offered online to both domestic (Australian) and international students. The admission requirements ensure that students have the appropriate qualification or overseas equivalent prior to entry. The course also has an additional entry pathway for students who have completed the Graduate Certificate in Comparative and International Education, which has a specific Program of Study and 24 credit points of advanced standing.
As a major selling point, what sets UNE’s program apart from other institutional (university) programs is how it benchmarks and scaffolds higher order skills through each unit in the course. Each unit requires completion of six assessments to allow instructors to properly assess higher order skills in addition to core competency requirements. The higher order skills that represent the personalised assessment tool (PAT) are as follows: creativity, communication, analytical thinking, problem solving, and reflective thinking. The PAT provides enrolled students with ongoing assessment as they progress through each unit of the degree and a cumulative summary of the results upon completion of the degree will include a PATsig and PATe-port, which will help in finding prospective employment.
Career Opportunities
Career opportunities in comparative and international education include working as educational policy analysts, educators in international settings, international development analysts, international education administrators, and international research scholars. Employment prospects are for those who are interested in international education at universities, international development at government agencies, comparative education research at think tanks and multilateral agencies, and comparative education research for further exploration (PhD/EdD).
