International Keynote Presentations on Poverty and Social Inclusion in Education

Dr. Paul Downes, Director of DCU’s Educational Disadvantage Centre, Institute of Education, has given a number of recent international keynote and invited presentations on his research in the area of poverty and social inclusion in education.

On 16th of February, he gave the keynote presentation at the Directorate General of Education of the Portuguese Ministry of Education & European Commission Working Group on Schools International Meeting TEIP 2017 “Continuity and Transitions in Learner Development”. His presentation, Addressing Continuity and Transitions in a Holistic, Multidimensional Way: Overcoming System Mismatch, Blockages in Communication and Fragmentation was to over 400 teachers and school principals from the Priority Zone Schools for areas of high poverty across Portugal, as well as for officials from Education Ministries across Europe.

He gave an invited workshop on Structural Indicators for Inclusive Systems in and around Schools to Directors-General for Schools from Education Ministries across all EU member states at the European Commission and Slovak EU Presidency Meeting of Directors-General for Schools on December 13-14th, 2016.  

Dr. Downes also gave the opening keynote presentation, Developing inclusive systems in and around schools for early school leaving prevention: The importance of emotions and relationships, at the Serbian Education Ministry and UNICEF Conference, Combating early school leaving in Serbia through effective dropout prevention and intervention measures at the school level (November 28/29, 2016). Together with Professor Carmel Cefai, he also gave an invited presentation to the European Parliament Intergroup on Children’s Rights, on school bullying and early school leaving prevention.