School–University Partnership: Process, Structure, Outcomes, and Impact

Middle East Institute for Higher Education School-University Partnership: Process, Structure, Outcomes, and Impact The Middle East Institute for Higher Education at The American University in Cairo School-University Partnership: Process, Structure, Outcomes and Impact Authors Malak Zaalouk Heba El-Deghaidy & Lujain Ramadan, Dana Sabbah, Lamiaa Eid Edited by the peer review committee: The American University in Cairo and The University of Leicester The Project Number: 573660-EPP-1-2016-EG-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP The Project Title: School-University Partnership for Peer Communities of Learners (SUP4PCL) The Project Website: SUP4PCL.aucegypt.edu Disclaimer This work has originated through the School-University Partnership for Peer Communities of Learners (SUP4PCL) Project that was initiated by the Middle East Institute for Higher Education (MEIHE) at the American University in Cairo in partnership with Ain Shams, Alexandria, Helwan, Leicester, Limerick, Martin Luther and Northampton universities. The project is an Erasmus + initiative funded and supported by the European Commission. This and any communication or publication related to the action, made by the beneficiaries jointly or individually in any form and using any means, shall indicate that it reflects only the author’s view and that the Agency and the Commission are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. 4 Acknowledgement We would like to express our deep appreciation for the trust granted to this project by The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, The Ministry of Education and Technical Education, and The European Commission CBHE represented by Erasmus+. Without their support, this case study would not have been produced. This work would have not come to light without the great support obtained from the faculties of education in Alexandria, Ain Shams and Helwan Universities in giving accessibility to both faculties and schools. We would therefore like to thank all of the project coordinators, who organized the field work visits, and to heartily thank all the respondents from the various schools, who generously gave us their time, thoughts, and emotions. Special thanks is due to our European colleagues from University of Limerick, University of Northampton, University of Leicester and Martin Luther University for responding to our designed activities and for being culturally sensitive and supportive in their capacity as members of an extended peer community of learners. These activities resulted in much of the data that we were able to obtain for this case study. We would like to acknowledge the role played by University of Leicester in accepting to be peer reviewing our work. Finally, we would like to recognize all the promising students who we met during this research journey and their brilliant teachers. 5 Table of Contents List of Acronyms and Abbreviations 8 List of Figures 12 List of Tables 13 List of Appendices 14 Preface 15 Introduction 16 Context 17 Section 1 17 Status of education in Egypt 17 School context 18 Status of Higher Education in Egypt 21 Faculties of Education context 22 Section 2 26 School profile in SUP4PCL project 26 FOE profile in SUP4PCL 26 Section 3 29 SUP4PCL project intervention activities and the development of PCLs 29 Methodology 30 Research Method 30 Research Instruments 31 Phase 1: Motivation questionnaire 32 Phase 2: Habits of mind questionnaire 32 Phase 3: Observation and school visits 38 Phase 4: Document analysis 38 Phase 5: Focus group discussion 38 Phase 6: Individual interview protocol 39 Triangulation 42 Participants 42 Access to the Research Sites 43 Ethics and Approvals 43 Data Analysis 43 Limitations 45 6 The Process, Structure, Outcomes and Impact 46 Process 46 The inception phase 46 Evolution phase: building rapport 47 Establishing teacher labs at university 48 Consolidating and institutionalizing the relationship: teachers in the driver’s seat 49 Structure 50 Unilateral versus reciprocal change patterns 50 Individual versus institutional relationships 51 The focus of the partnership 51 The type of outcomes 52 The level of complexity 52 The mode of learning 53 The geographic location 54 The nature of the relationship 54 Exclusive or expanding partnership 54 Outcomes and Impact 56 Blurring of boundaries between higher education and K-12 personnel 56 Renewed sense of professional identity 57 Gaining a sense of renewal at both the university and school level 57 School administrators involving others in decision making 57 Training unit involved and its capacity built 58 Engaging parents and community 58 Engaging students in the partnership and allowing students to teach their peers 58 Deep levels of transformation 58 Levels of change and transformation in the SUP4PL project 59 Challenges, Conclusion and Way Forward 67 Challenges 67 Conclusion and The Way Forward 68 13 List of Tables Table 1. School demographics 27 Table 2. FOE demographics 28 Table 3. Research study instruments 31 Table 4. Ain Shams PCLs 33 Table 5. Alexandria school PCLs 33 Table 6. Helwan school PCLs 34 Table 7. Habits of mind questionnaire 34 Table 8. Habits of Mind responses from Ain Shams University 35 Table 9. Habits of Mind responses from Alexandria University 36 Table 10. Habits of Mind responses from Helwan University 37 Table 11. Demographics of teachers and faculty members participating in the interviews 41 14 List of Appendices Appendix 1. Research Framework 71 Appendix 2. Habits of the Mind Questionnaire 72 Appendix 3. Focus Group Discussion Questions 75 Appendix 4. Interview Questions 77 Appendix 5. IRB consent form, IRB Approval and CAPMAS Approval Letter 81 Appendix 6. Alignment of FGD Questions with Structure and process of the SU Partnership 85 Appendix 7: Alignment of FGD Questions with Impact of the SU Partnership 86 Appendix 8: Alignment of Interview Questions with Impact from the SU Partnership 87 Appendix 9: The Signed MOU with the MOETE and MOHE 88 15 Preface The partnership is the result of an Erasmus+ project that was awarded to the Middle East Institute for Higher Education at the Graduate School of Education in the American University in Cairo entitled School-University Partnership for Peer Communities of Learners (SUP4PCL) in November 2016. The partnership was created within a context where Egypt has shown a keen need for reform at the school and university levels and where Faculties of Education have acquired the reputation of operating in an ivory tower divorced from the practical field of school improvement. A continued debate has called for the abolition of faculties and schools of education at the undergraduate level and the relegation of their work to the graduate level; hence, the eternal struggle between sequential and concurrent teacher education programs. The partnership was therefore viewed by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Universities and Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research as a welcome step in the direction of creating cost-effective means of stimulating a reform environment. For several decades, the international reform community has recognized the importance of school-university partnerships and the creation of Professional Development Schools (PDS) in offering an effective method of creating collaboration, continuous professional development, research, and pedagogical innovation. The proponents of this approach have claimed that it can simultaneously reform school practices and teacher education programs. It is the intention of the SUP4PCL consortium in Egypt to introduce such an approach with the support and creation of Peer Communities of learners (PCLs) at the university, school, and cross-cultural levels. Due to some bureaucratic delays, it is only in late February of 2017 that the partnership was enacted with the first Kick-off meeting of the project. During this initial first phase, partnership teams were being constructed within the eight institutions of the consortium; Ain Shams University ANSU, Helwan University HU, Alexandria University AU (from Egypt), University of Limerick UL, (from Ireland) Martin Luther University (from Germany), University of Northampton UON, University of Leicester ULEIC (from UK), and the American University in Cairo AUC, coordinating the consortium from Egypt. Moreover, the various institutions with very diverse cultural and political backgrounds were beginning to know each other. The early stages of consolidating this layer of the partnership were animated with meetings and much mobility to learn about each other in live natural environments. During this preparatory preliminary phase, another layer was added to the partnership namely that between Egyptian Faculties of Education and Professional Development Schools (PDSs). The first step in that direction was a signed Memorandum of Understanding MOU between the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the Ministry of Education and Technical Education. Under this protocol, three faculties were to partner with a total of 15 public governmental schools at a ratio of 5 to each faculty later to expand to a total of 45 schools at a ratio of 15 schools per faculty. The MOU was followed by signed letters of agreement with the Ministry of Education local directorates. After some months, more closeness was established between the partners through exchange visits, activities, communication and meetings in the summer of 2018. Halfway through the project, another dimension to the partnership was added, namely a twinning process was introduced with the following arrangement: AUC twinning with ULEIC for quality assurance and monitoring purposes, AU with UON twining for capacity development and the write up of case studies, similarly for the same purposes HU twinned with MLU and ANSU with UL. Finally, in 2019 yet another dimension was added to the partnership with the clustering of PDSs thus allowing for these to expand to 45 with a ratio of 15 per each Faculty of Education (FOE). The various case studies of this project will cover all the layers and dimensions of the enhanced and expanding partnership. All the participants in the expanding partnership/consortium reached consensus on a research framework with set questions shaping the work of each of the case studies. Together, the various case studies constitute a level of triangulation that supports and assures the integrity of interpretation especially that the collection of data was done at different points in time by different research teams in similar settings. The total data generated from this project has the potential of being utilized for grounded theory and to further refine concepts and comparative approaches to school-university partnerships, and Peer Communities of Learners PCL. Malak Zaalouk 16 Introduction “School-University Partnership is not a project: It is a way of life” (Burton & Greher, 2007, p.15) However “A partnership that has as its purpose the creation of a partnership-rather the accomplishment of some ultimate goalis inevitably doomed to early failure” (Clark, 1999, p.168) This case study will examine the process of building the partnership, the shape, nature and structure it took and finally what can we consider to be the major outputs of the partnership to date. Before we go into each of these three components, process, structure and outcomes, it is worth mentioning initially that this partnership is an enhanced partnership that is complex, multi-dimensional, multi-layered, expanding and flexible. The study will at times touch upon the enhanced nature of the partnership especially when touching upon the impact of the European partners as perceived by faculty members and teachers as well as the role of local administrators, communities, and parents. The partnership in the SUP4PCL project adopted the Professional Development School model. Goodlad (1993) defines the Professional Development schools as a partnership that acts as a “centre of inquiry in which individuals – from both sets of institutionsstudy presumably to improve teaching, learning and perhaps teacher education” (p.25). More specific definitions around Professional Development Schools (PDS) suggest that the “PDS is an undertaking of schools and schools of education to create places in which entering teachers can combine theory and practice in a setting organized to support their learning; veteran teachers can renew their own professional development and assume new roles as mentors, university adjuncts, and teacher leaders, and school and university educators can together engage in research and rethinking of practice…Ideally the university program and the school develop a shared conception of good teaching that informs their joint work” (Darling-Hammond, 2005, p.vii). The PDS movement that emerged in the USA defined its mission in four dimensions namely; the preparation of new teachers, university faculty development, inquiry directed at the improvement of practice and last but not least, enhanced student achievement. This fourfold mission-inspired our SUP4PCL initiative in Egypt. It was also inspired by some of the levels developed by the Holmes group, which led the movement in the USA and with the help of the National Council for Accrediting Teacher Education NCATE developed standards in 2001 as a guideline for Professional Development Schools. We found these guidelines very useful for our work as they trace the journey through four levels. A first level which simply looks at the beginning stage of planning and committing to the development of a PDS. A second level which they called a developing level wherein the partners pursued and developed the mission of PDS even though no policy was put in place. A third level, they called performing at standard wherein policies were put in place and the PDS partnership became part of the two institutions while they closely collaborate, work closely together and cooperation has become the norm. A last and fourth level is called the leading level and it alludes to the partnership being very advanced, sustainable and generative (Arnold, 2015). While other case studies in the project will be more focused on the formation of Peer Communities of Learners (PCLs), the focus of this research is on the nature of the partnership between schools and universities under the Erasmus+ funded project and its impact. This particular case study will be concerned with the partnership between the three Egyptian Faculties of Education and the 15 Professional Development Schools (PDS) out of which two of the schools dropped out. The major protagonists of this section are faculty from the three universities, along with teachers and school principals from the 13 schools. The study aims to answer the following main research questions: RQ1 What is the nature of the partnership in the project? RQ2 How does the School-University Partnership SUP impact on practices, beliefs, values, and attitudes? RQ3 What are some of the tensions between beliefs, values, and practices? 17 Context This section looks at the context found in the schools and faculties of education (FOE) at the beginning of the SUP4PCL project. The first part of this section starts with the status of education in Egypt and local contextual issues in FOEs and Egyptian schools. The second part of this section describes the FOEs and schools and provides information related to the demographics of those involved in the project. The third part of this section describes the various interventions and activities implemented throughout the lifetime of the project Figure 1. Outline of SUP4PCL context Section 1 Status of education in Egypt The Egyptian educational system is well known for its centralised operations that continue to emulate the French bureaucratic model adopted by the Ottoman ruler Mohamed Ali (Ibrahim, 2010). It is also known to be the largest educational system in MENA and Africa with more than 18 million students (USAID, 2018). The actual expenditure on pre-university education did not exceed 3% of the GDP in 2013 while in 2016 it reached 4% (Oxford Business Group, 2019). The Egyptian Ministry of Education (MOETE) develops national policies, legislations, and standards. It also has a main role in monitoring and evaluating policy implementation. Curricula are developed through the MOETE and human resources are managed there too by incentives. Three centres support the efforts of the MOETE. These are the National Centre of Curricula Development (NCED), National Centre for Education Research (NCER) and the National Centre for Examinations and Educational Evaluation (NCEEE). The educational system has been facing serious challenges and has been through various reform efforts trying to provide a facelift to the current status. Several national strategic plans were introduced such as the 2002 - 2007; 2007 - 2012 and recently the 2012-2017 national strategic plan. The focus of these reforms was decentralization, quality, school-based reform, accountability, accreditation, and wider community participation (MOE, 2007). The main achievements of these national strategies is the reduction of attrition rates in addition to efforts that increase professionalism of teachers’ work and autonomy of school principals (OECD, 2015). The MOETE proposed a national strategic plan for pre-university education reform 2014-2030. The goals of this strategic plan are to improve the quality of education through: schoolbased reform, professional development and human resources, development of curricula, support the use of technology in schools, and monitoring and evaluation. Through a World Bank loan, Education 2.0 is the new wave to education in Egypt (MOE, 2019; Shohdy, 2016). A new wave to education was deemed necessary by the government as according to a 2017-2018 report by the World Economic Forum, Egypt ranked 129th globally in terms of the quality of education (Schwab, 2019). An earlier 2013 USAID report similarly revealed that “one in five students in Egypt in grade three could not read a single word from a reading passage, 50 percent of students with five years of schooling were functionally illiterate, and only 67 percent could do basic mathematics” (USAID, 2013, p.3). UNICEF’s study also commented on the persistence of finding traditional teaching methods in Egypt stating that an Egyptian child is far more likely to be taught using traditional ‘chalk and talk’ methods (Al-Ashkar, 2018). As for the status of teachers, by looking back into the history of education in Egypt, a noticeable decline in the status of teachers started from 1962. At that time, there was a need to educate more and more students who were enrolling in the free educational system announced by Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s former President 1956-1970. This demand required massive hiring where some were not qualified and school facilities 18 were scarce. This led to the decline of teachers’ social status and schools to operate in double shifts (Barsoum, 2004). With the extension of compulsory education to nine years instead of six under Mubarak’s presidency in the 1980s, more and more students entered high school and universities leading to more graduates than what the labour market could absorb. With reference to how education in Egypt is managed, the MOETE is supported by Muddiriyas and Idaras. The former performs mainly organisational, analytical and monitoring tasks, such as compiling comprehensive situation analyses of the districts’ performance. For that to take place, it uses standards determined by the MOETE. It also provides technical support to the districts, developing the educational plans at the governorate level, co-ordinating the decentralisation of the curriculum, managing the printing and distribution of books, and maintenance of the educational buildings with the Idaras. The Idaras are responsible for developing an annual report on the state of education in the governorate which registers and analyses the variables and learning outcomes in light of the districts’ reports. Idaras also provide training programmes and are responsible for the development of final year primary and preparatory stage examinations. These are based on the directives and blueprints developed by the MOETE through the work of the National Centre for Examination and Educational Evaluation (NCEEE) (OECD, 2015). School context Quality of teachers and teaching The teaching profession in Egypt tends to be associated with a low social and economic status (Loveluck, 2012). This notion is reinforced by the low salaries and poor-quality of professional development (El-Khouly, 2018). Teaching in schools is mainly dominated by teacher-led instructions over student-centered ones. This seems to be a backlash result of the closed-ended type of assessment that encourages rote learning and a heavy reliance on memorisation. To rectify the status of teachers, similar to the efforts done to improve the educational system by the various reforms, there have been significant efforts to support teachers. The National Standards for Education was established in 2003, in addition to the establishment of the Teachers Cadre in 2007, which paved the way for a career path and promotional system along with a 50% increase in basic pay. In 2008, the Professional Academy for Teachers (PAT) was established and had as its mandate planning and reviewing standards of continuous teacher professional development (CPD) and promotion, issuing teaching profession certification, accreditation of professional development and all training services providers, and finally supporting educational and pedagogical research and ensuring its application. Brophy and Good (1986) noted that good teachers are the essence of forming good schools, and improving teachers’ skills and knowledge through professional development (Guskey, 1995) is one of the most important investments of time and money that local, state, and national leaders make in education. Despite the various efforts to improve the quality of teachers, according to the World Bank (2010) report, in-service education of teachers (INSET) and CPD in Egypt fit largely into the traditional mode of inservice provision–short one-off courses of lectures, workshops, seminars, and qualification programmes with little or no follow-up similar to that in other Arab countries (EL-Deghaidy, Mansour, & Al-Shamrani, 2015). Teachers tend to perceive CPD offered by the MOETE as repetitive and with no value. The World Bank described it as “wide in content but narrow in sharing good practice throughout the system” (World Bank, 2010, p.9). Throughout this project, teachers seemed to be resistant to attending workshops and meetings thinking that FOE will offer similar sessions as those by the MOETE. School facilities and density Due to Egypt’s high population, reaching over 99 million (CAPMAS, 2019), schools face a problem of class density. The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) reported that the average number of students per class in the primary stage is 46 students, the preparatory stage 43 students and the general secondary stage 39 students (OECD, 2015) (Figure 2). The numbers also indicate that Egypt has the highest average class size compared to other countries. It supports the fact that the average class size is almost 80% more than OECD countries (Figure 3). 19 Figure 2. Average class size across educational stages Figure 3. Average class size in Egypt compared to other countries. Sullivan (2012) reported that teachers in larger classes adopted negative interactions with the students due to being overwhelmed. However, Bourke (1986) noted that teachers in smaller classes spent more time monitoring the students and providing them instant feedback. Another main factor that affects class density is the freeze on teacher hire that impacted the system negatively and led to shortages in some disciplines. To resolve this issue, the MOETE started to hire teachers on a non-permanent contractual system. In 2010, teachers representing this system rose to around 45% (MOE, 2010). Another factor that has an impact on classrooms is the maldistribution of teachers across schools leading to shortages in some subjects versus a large increase in other subjects. There are also shortages in some governorates versus others (Strategic plan 2014-2030, n.d.). Schools are facing problems in regards to reallocating teachers to different schools to cover for teacher shortages in some areas. Figure 4 shows the distribution of teachers and the surpluses according to the educational stages. Figure 4. Surpluses and shortages of teachers by school level. Also, it is very much possible to find teachers being promoted to a different school. Moreover, there are schools in Egypt that work using a double shift mode to accommodate the large number of students (Figure 5). Among many problems, overcrowded classrooms is a widespread problem in Egyptian public schools due to the tight budget of the government (Bolbol, Zalat, Hammam, & Elnakeb, 2017). According to the UNICEF (2014) report, the enrolment rate at the primary level has exceeded 90%. This number is stated by the Global Competitiveness Report in 2016 which confirmed that the enrolment rate has reached 98%. Figure 5. Percentage of schools functioning on full days’ verses double shifts Recently teachers have been challenged with a new educational system known by Education 2.0. The new system starts from KG-Primary grade 3 and is based on interdisciplinary thematic learning. Teachers are finding it confusing and difficult to handle as their time is limited and resistance to changing to a different system than what they are used to is causing them many discomforts. In one of the project’s schools namely the Lilly school, they have another related issue to resistance to change as teachers’ age was clearly higher than in other schools involved in the project. This meant that teachers’ years of experience was 20 longer 20-30 years and that changing what they were used to do would seem to be harder. It was clear that some of these teachers did not participate in any recent CPD offered by the MOETE. This made them more willing to learn and eager to engage and participate in the SUP4PCL project. In terms of infrastructure, schools vary in the facilities they have. While some have computer labs according to the national policy of one laboratory for every 15 classes (Hamdy, 2007), others are not able to have this fulfilled as computer labs are only available in 12% of primary schools, 42% of preparatory schools and 23% of secondary schools, with only half of them connected to the Internet (OECD, 2015). Lack of Internet connectivity and limited availability of computers, in general, seems to limit teachers on integrating computer-assisted instruction (CAI) and internet assisted instruction (IAI) which seem an obvious result. Nonetheless, Mason, Pelgrim, and Plomp (2008) argue that teachers’ adoption of ICT and CAI vary widely according to the teachers and not due to the technology availability in schools. Collegiality in schools The working conditions of teachers and the implementation of the educational system do not seem to allow for collegial interactions. Teachers as experts in their own discipline might not have much to discuss with teachers of other disciplines. The rough working conditions also hinder quality time for reflection and building connections resulting in teacher burnout. In a study by Badawy (2015), teachers experienced medium to high levels of stress and medium levels of burnout. The research findings suggest that Egyptian teachers report little involvement and supervisors’ support, little autonomy, little co-worker cohesion, little innovation and little physical comfort. As for reflective practices, both reflection-in-action and on-action (Schon, 1983) were not documented as daily practices teachers in Egypt and other Arab countries (Al-issa & Al-bulushi, 2010) would apply, unless explicitly directed to do so (Abdou, 2017). Teachers are consumed to cover course content according to timetables set by the MOETE. It is not usual to find teachers visiting others in classes or providing peer feedback. It is very well perceived as a lonely profession (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008). Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco, and Twenge (2005) stressed that social acceptance is one of the motivations for the development of teachers’ ability to self-regulate. When the goal of positive relationships is not achieved, as in many cases of school teachers, and individual experiences rejected, their ability to self-regulate reduces, leading to behaviours that will ultimately reinforce the feelings of loneliness, in a selfdestructive cycle (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008). As for school principals and leadership positions, it should be noted that school leadership is an important aspect of the educational system. It has been researched extensively as it affects many other factors in the educational process such as students’ academic achievement, teachers’ performance and teacher retention (Habashy, 2015). The main trend found in the 13 participating schools in the Erasmus project, shows that the majority are more inclined to follow an autocratic style of leadership at different levels, while the minority leaned more towards a mix between autocratic and democratic styles. Such leadership styles can be hindering factors to any proposed change in school. Although the policy discourse in Egypt emphasises that school leaders are autonomous leaders, in reality, schools in Egypt are dominated by those who hinder teachers’ professional development and enact practices where teachers are isolated in their classrooms and given limited opportunities to grow professionally (Abdou, 2017). In schools where teachers were either enrolled in Ph.D. programmes or were awarded the degree, school principals were giving them a hard time. According to school visits to one of the schools, the leader of the school was a challenge to the FOE members due to wanting to avoid the influence on teachers by anyone but him. With a traditional mindset, the school principal was not open to change nor to including contemporary practices such as reflection, democratic decision making etc... (Iris school observation report, 2018). Security and access For the project team members to implement the planned activities and interventions at FOE and schools, access to these locations were needed. Access to educational institutions in Egypt is a delicate issue and requires going through a lengthy system of approvals and security checks. Non-Egyptians are not allowed to enter schools and are only allowed to higher education institutions if they receive security clearance, that can take over a month. Passport copies and reasons for why 21 and who they meet are needed before setting foot on campus. The same goes for Egyptians visiting these educational institutions yet the process can be shorter while copies of national IDs are needed and sent in advance with notice at the campus gates. To help gain access and also to start a close partnership through the Erasmus+ project between schools and universities, the project PI established the cornerstone of this project with the signed MoU between the minister of higher education and minister of education and technological education. This was followed by signed agreements between the faculties of education and the relevant Idara in their locality. Signatures at both of these levels required months of follow-up to the degree that one of the FOEs took eight months to get these signatures finalised. From that point on, it was left to each FOE to start extensive discussions with school principals to access each school within its proximity. FOE had problems accessing schools due to either restriction from the school principals or due to the timing of the needed visits. In various instances throughout the lifetime of the project, FOE members could not enter the schools as there were exams which delayed data collected at different points. Grading exam papers is yet another time where access to schools was almost impossible. There were also national elections held at some schools and the entire school was shut down. Some schools allowed the FOE members to enter but would then forbid teachers to leave their classes and stop them from attending the Peer Communities of Learner (PCL) meetings, causing further disruption and delays. Not only did the school have access problems but also FOEs had issues related to their context and responsibilities around the year. End of semester exams and grading times were also when the FOE members found difficulty to meet for their PCLs or leave their workplaces to visit and mentor school PCL members. In conclusion, access and security issues were the main obstacles in the project. For these same reasons, even parents are prevented to have access to these educational institutions, isolating schools from their communities and preventing the community to provide support when needed. Yet, through the project schools and universities opened their doors to establish partnerships for the very first time and to extend this partnership to other neighbouring schools and even open up to the local community which in itself is a great accomplishment. Discipline and bullying issues Issues related to discipline and bullying are not new when referring to schools. What is new, is that it can happen on different levels and by different means. Bullying has different and diverse facets/ manifestations. These include bodily, mental assault, use of harsh and rude language, or terrorizing in an attempt to bring about a feeling of fright, anxiety, submission or damage to the bullied (Said, 2018). These actions can be carried out verbally through threatening, taunting, teasing, and/or calling names, or nonverbally through hitting, pushing, kicking, pinching or restraining another by physical contact (Schuster, 1996). Furthermore, it is described as “submission to power as a result of not being in control, in this case, the powerful person assaults the less powerful one” (Sentse, Scholte, & Voeten, 2007, p.1011). A study in North Africa by Abdirahman, Fleming, and Jacobsen, (2013) highlighted the significant prevalence rate of bullying in Egypt compared to other Arab countries. Egypt had twice the amount of bullying reports than those in Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia over a onemonth span. The schools included in this Erasmus project varied in terms of the magnitude each had in terms of discipline and bullying issues. One school of the 13 schools involved in the project had clear bullying issues with their students. In that school, parents of the students were working in high positions in governmental offices around the school. Students were bullying teachers whenever a problem occurred and threatened to tell their parents who would come to school and cause trouble. Students were also bullying each other during break time and in class. The school definitely had a problem with discipline (Lilly school observation, 20th March, 2019). Status of higher education in Egypt In Egypt, there are 31 private universities and 26 national universities (Ramage, 2019). The majority of students are enrolled in national universities rather than private universities (Figure 6). Similar to the preuniversity educational system, higher education is also centralised. A recent OECD report, Reviews of National Policies for Education: Higher Education in Egypt 2010, identified the over-centralization of authority in Egypt’s universities as one of the main obstacles to reform. Recent efforts to reform higher education go 22 back to 2009 when the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) started a major project that included five subtopics including Quality Assurance and Accreditation Project (QAAP), Higher Education Enhancement Project Fund (HEEPF), Information & Communication Technology Project (ICTP), Faculty-Leadership Development Project (FLDP), Egyptian Technical Colleges Project (ETCP) (World Bank, 2009). QAAP has urged faculties in public universities to ensure that the curricular content meets the expectations of stakeholders for that reason educational programmes can be updated through a curriculum development committee (CDC) established by the Quality Assurance Unit (QAU) in each faculty engaged with QAAP. The CDC committee is chaired by the dean and includes vice-deans, the QA unit manager, and department heads. As for the FLDP, results from studies (i.e., Abdelmotaleb, 2010; Almorsy, 2009; Hussien, 2013) seem to reach to similar conclusions that faculty members did not benefit as expected due to short notice of session announcements, topics not related to their needs, repeated sessions if a faculty member would apply for promotion for the rank of associate and full professor, a disconnect with the content as they were decided top-down. Figure 6. Enrolment in Higher Education institutions across Egypt Faculties of Education context All of the 26 national universities include a faculty of education. The faculties of education (FOE) in Egypt generally aim to educate prospective teachers for the various stages of general education; educate teachers at the postgraduate level; function as a centre for research, through master and doctorate degrees; enhance the professional and academic level of teachers by in-service training; disseminate state-of-the-art pedagogies and ideologies to stakeholders; and exchange experience and information with various cultural and educational institutions, nationally and internationally. World Bank Faculty of Education Project identified the following weaknesses in FOEs: low or uneven faculty quality, inadequate facilities, weak instructional resources, uneven management, poor quality controls governing entry, out-of-date standards, and lack of incentive for institutions to improve the quality of their teacher education programmes (Dewidar, 2012). To become a teacher, students enrol in a teacher education four-year programme where they study educational and academic courses depending on their specialty (i.e., biology, Maths, English, Special Education, ….). According to statistics from OECD 2018, 78% of all teachers in Egypt have a bachelor’s degree in education whereas 22% have degrees from other schools (MOE, 2010). Entrance to faculties of education, as for other disciplines of study, is determined by students’ scores in their secondary school leave certificate (as cited in ELKerdany, 2014). Admission to faculties of Medicine and Engineering, like many other Arab countries, require students to achieve a total percentage in their end of school leaving exam of over 98%. Education requires a more modest total percentage that can start from 75% and above depending on the major. Figure 7 illustrates the top 10 fields of study across different disciplines in national universities. Figure 7. Top 10 fields of study across national universities. Due to the university entrance system in Egypt known by Admission Co-ordination Bureau of Egyptian Universities (ACBEU), many students allocated by the central placement office could end up in programmes different to their preferences just because of the final 29 Section 3 SUP4PCL project intervention activities and the development of PCLs The project proposed several intervention activities throughout its lifetime. These interventions were organised as per the phases of the project and work-packages set out during the planning and implementation phases. In work-package one, partners in the FOE were required to establish baseline reports including the profile of the faculties of education and school profile. The aim was to identify the current status in terms of demographics, location, mission and vision, organisational chart and cultural aspects that are present in such educational institutions. The project’s leadership provided the various teams with the research tools for their baseline studies. Figure 9. Brief outline of the project milestones A needs analysis targeted for school teachers was conducted at the beginning of the project. Workshops and meetings between the FOE members and members from the projects’ EU partners were conducted to establish momentum and define what is meant by PCLs. They also looked into how to spread the PCL concept and its application in both FOEs and schools through coaching and mentorship sessions. Such sessions helped develop both senior and assistant mentors in the FOEs who in turn developed mentors in the professional development schools (PDS). The school quality assurance units had a main role in this process as units were up and functioning to provide support sessions needed to build on what the FOEs developed. Work-package two focused on developing material in areas such as science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM), education for sustainable development (ESD) and global citizenship (GC). All three areas were developed with active pedagogies and an emphasis on special educational needs (SEN). This required school visits and workshops to help in both the FOEs and schools on each concept and how to design material linked to the school curricula yet with a focus on these three new state-of-the-art topics. The project PI and team at AUC developed instruments for such purpose and, in some cases, used previously developed instruments borrowed from ARAS (Action Research for All Schools) which is also managed by MEIHE. FOEs and schools started to document the PCL meetings, workshops and transformation via diaries and reflective practices. Moreover, in work-package two PDS were asked to reach out to neighbouring schools to start a clustering stage (See Figure 8). Workpackages three and four focused on monitoring and policy dialogue. Through these two work-packages, the project activities and interventions were evaluated and outcomes were directly communicated to policymakers at the MOETE and MOHE. For work-package five on management, the aim was to ensure that the project was well-coordinated and managed at every phase through various mechanisms such as meetings, the creation of a strong website and various other communication conduits. The meetings varied according to the partners involved and aim. There were two types of meetings, local technical meetings, and international management meetings. The former meetings were mainly to support the Egyptian partners at various stages of the project, such as provide FOE members with relevant literature and extended workshops that articulated major concepts in the projects. Examples of these included ethnographical studies, qualitative methodologies, mentorship and coaching, and peer communities of learners. In some cases, the management team at AUC developed exemplary material on STEAM education, education for sustainable development (ESD) and citizenship. These materials were later used by the FOEs in workshops each in their institution to develop similar material for the project at large. Workshops on qualitative methodologies and data analysis were also conducted at FOEs to support their case studies and reporting. As for the latter type of meetings, international management meetings, these were for general technical issues related to both EU and EG partners in addition to management of the project activities and timeline. 30 Methodology The research team decided to use a mixed research method approach with both qualitative and quantitative methods. Cohen and Manion (1994) and Gall, Borg, and Gall (1996) see that using quantitative and qualitative methods increases the validity of information adding richness to the findings, as each complements the other. The qualitative method was, however, more dominant than the quantitative approach in our study. The main purpose of utilizing the mixed methods approach is that it provides a more complex understanding of a phenomenon that cannot be understood by using only one approach alone (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011; Morse & Niehaus, 2009). The type of mixed methods that this study adopts is a ‘dominant-less dominant status’ type where the researchers conduct a study in a single dominant paradigm with a small component from an alternative design (Miller, 2003; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). Here the dominant paradigm is a qualitative one with a small component from the quantitative paradigm. By utilizing a mixed-methods approach, triangulation is needed to construct an integrated explanation of the phenomenon (Burke, Onwuegbuzie, & Turner, 2007). According to Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Turner (2007), the research here falls under qualitative-dominant mixed methods research that Creswell (2012) named as ‘sequential transformative’. Qualitative research is conducted in a natural setting and therefore enables researchers to learn from the first-hand experience about the world they are investigating (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). It is also capable of evincing important information that would be relevant for this study as well as providing analysis strongly related to the context in Egypt, which seems to be lacking in quantitative research. The choice of the qualitative methods in this study could be seen in the light of the following description by Denzin and Lincoln (1994, p. 2): Qualitative research is multimethod in its focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them. One of the most appealing methods under the qualitative paradigm is the use of the case study. Creswell (2012) defines case studies as ones that serve the purpose of illuminating a particular issue and provides an opportunity to ‘go deep’ (Corcoran, Walker, & Wals, 2004). The data was collected utilising both quantitative and qualitative instruments between December 2017 and March 2019 to answer the three research questions stated in the introduction and below. RQ1 What is the nature of the partnership in the project? RQ2 How does the School-University Partnership SUP impact on practices, beliefs, values, and attitudes? RQ3 What are some of the tensions between beliefs, values, and practices? Research Methods The research throughout the lifetime of the project had various phases where each phase included one or more instruments. The sections below highlight these instruments while stating the aim of each instrument, how it was developed and validated, and details of its structure and how data were analysed. The figure below shows the timeline of when each instrument was used throughout the four phases of the project data collection (Figure10). Figure 10. Project timeline and instruments 31 Research Instruments To answer the research questions on the schooluniversity partnership, four research instruments were designed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. These were: Motivation questionnaire, Habits of mind questionnaire, Focus group discussion protocol, and Individual interview protocol. All four instruments were developed in English then translated into Arabic when used with the participants. The instruments were back translated to English again to ensure that the wording was not lost in translation. The following table 3 shows the dates when each instrument was used. It also shows how each instrument is aligned with RQ1 on the nature of the S-U partnership. Table 3 Research study instruments Instrument Date Alignment with RQ1 Alignment with RQ2 Alignment with RQ3 Motivation questionnaire December 2017-February 2018 ----- X ------- Habits of Mind questionnaire November 2018March 2019 ------- X ------- Observations and visits Ongoing X X X Document analysis January-February 2019 X X X Focus group discussions February – March 2019 X X X Individual interview February – March 2019 X X X 32 Phase 1: Motivation questionnaire The first phase of the project involved collecting data through an open-ended questionnaire. The aim of the questionnaire was to identify school teachers’ motivation behind joining the teaching profession and capture the level of satisfaction of such a profession. The validity of the questionnaire was obtained by three experts in the field from Egyptian faculties of education. The open-ended questionnaire consisted of two questions, what is the main reason for joining the teaching profession, and what is the level of your satisfaction with your current profession and why. The first part of the second question had four options where the teacher would select from. These were ‘very much satisfied’, ‘satisfied’, ‘somewhat satisfied’ and ‘not satisfied’. Fifty-five teachers participating in the project responded. Teachers were from the 13 schools where each FOE partnered with the five schools that aligned with the criteria of selection. Seventeen teachers were from AinShams University’s three partner schools, 16 from Alexandria University’s partner schools, and 20 from Helwan University. Two responses from the 55 were removed from the total as their sheets were left blank reducing the total to 53 respondents. Teachers’ responses to question one and second part of question two were analysed using a thematic analysis as described below in all qualitative thematic analyses throughout the project. Thematic analysis approach is a method of analysing, identifying, and reporting patterns (themes) within data (Braun & Clark, 2006). For this to take place, one of the team researchers went through many phases when analysing qualitative data raised from these questions. First, the researcher kept on reading the data noting down initial ideas/codes. Second, data were reduced, and initial codes were generated, this then helped themes to develop. Nine themes emerged for both questions that were analysed qualitatively. Third, the researcher gathered all the data relevant to each potential theme and sorted them thematically. Therefore, the data were organized in thematic categories that represented a rich description. Finally, the researcher focused on analysing the data and providing a concise and coherent finding. Responses to the first part of question two were done using frequencies as the question was a closedended question that was analysed quantitatively. One researcher was responsible for data entry and analysis. This researcher assigned numeric scores for all 53 participants while keeping the same values of their responses. Before analysing the scores, the researcher considered the proper type to be adopted from this instrument. Consequently, the researcher utilized the summed scores for participants to develop an overall score for each value separately (Creswell, 2012). This overall score helped in providing a percentage to each value that described participants’ level of satisfaction and making comparisons. This was done manually. In so doing, a frequency table was created to provide the summative number of participants and the percentage belonging for each value (Bryman, 2012). Phase 2: Habits of mind questionnaire In this phase, a quantitative closed four-point Likert scale (strongly disagree = 1, disagree=2, agree= 3, strongly disagree = 4) instrument called ‘Habits of mind questionnaire’ was administered. The questionnaire was validated and translated into Arabic by researchers in the Action Research for All Schools (ARAS), another funded project led by MEIHE, to accommodate the language needs of the respondents. The questionnaire was validated again in the Erasmus+ project by the quality assurance team. The questionnaire was divided into four main sections, each representing a theme with a total of 72 statements. The themes were as follows: attitudes (14 items), empowerment (18 items), habits of mind (21 items) and philosophy of education (19 items). A detailed breakdown of the four main themes and their sub-themes are in the following table. The number of items was reduced to 34 (25 positive items and 9 negative items) (See Appendix 4). A total of 68 teachers from AinShams university partner schools were involved, whereas 44 teachers from Alexandria university schools and finally 94 from Helwan university partner schools. Exceptionally, Helwan had included participants from teachers involved in the PCL and non-PCL teachers in their total responses. Tables 3-5 below show the details of participating teachers partnering with each of the three FOEs: 33 Table 4 Ain Shams PCLs Number of teachers Number of FOEs School Name N 16 3 Rose School 1 5 1 Dahlia school 2 10 3 Poppy school 3 8 2 Daisy school 4 12 2 Jasmine School 5 Table 5 Alexandria school PCLs Number of teachers Number of FOEs School Name N 5 2 Gardenia school 1 6 2 Iris school 2 4 2 Heather school 3 5 2 Clover school 4 5 2 Cherry Blossom school 5 34 Table 6 Helwan school PCLs Number of teachers Number of FOEs School Name N 9 4 Daffodil school 1 10 3 Lilly school 2 5 3 Lotus school 3 6 3 Sunflower school 4 5 3 Orchid school 5 Table 7 Habits of mind questionnaire Code of main theme Code of Sub-theme Themes/Sub-themes Number of items HM Habits of Mind 21 RF Reflection 7 AC Accepting Critique 6 ADO Accepting different opinions 4 CT Critical thinking 4 E Empathy 0 R Respect 0 A Attitudes 14 G Gender 2 D Democracy 7 R Research 1 CR Collaborative research 4 E Empowerment 18 POE Philosophy of Education 19 35 Table 8 Habits of Mind responses from Ain Shams University PCL/non-PCL School name No. Total PCL in school N= 33 Poppy school 13 Rose school 9 Jasmine school 7 Daisy school 4 Non-PCL in school N= 14 Daisy school 14 PCL in FOE N= 21 Total 47 teachers + 21 FOE= 68 36 Table 9 Habits of Mind responses from Alexandria University PCL-school/PCL-FOE School name No. Total PCL in school N= 11 Buttercup mentors from the school 5 Iris school 6 Non-PCL in school N= 25 Buttercup non-mentors 15 Iris school 10 PCL in FOE N= 8 Total 36 teachers + 8 FOE= 44 37 Table 10 Habits of Mind responses from Helwan University PCL/Non-PCL School name No. Total PCL in school N= 48 Daffodil School 8 Lilly School 10 Orchid school 5 Lotus school 19 Sunflower school 6 NonPCL in school N= 46 Daffodil School 14 Lilly School 6 Orchid school 11 Sunflower school 15 PCL in FOE N= 48 Total 94 teachers + 4 FOE= 98 38 The research investigators of the project aimed to collect responses from the questionnaire from members of both the PCLs and Non-PCLs in the FOEs and schools for comparative purposes. Yet data collected by the team from Helwan university were the only ones who had responses representing such variety and therefore the comparative component of this step was not possible. Responses from each participant were entered by two researchers to an excel sheet with a code that represents the FOE/School; PCL members/ non-PCL; code for each partner school associated with its FOE. After this first stage, a cross-checking process took place by a third researcher to ensure the accuracy of data entry. Respondents who left out many questions empty with no responses were marked as ‘void’ and were disregarded from the analysis. In the questionnaire, statements with negative inclinations were marked using a reverse scoring system as follows (strongly disagree = 4, disagree = 3, agree = 2, strongly agree =1). Responses were then grouped using descriptive analyses in frequencies and percentages. Phase 3: Observations and visits Field notes from school observation visits and FOE visits were collected, reported and reflected on by the project team. The school visits had various aims. One was to observe the classes; the second was to observe the PCLs and their meetings and finally to observe the mentoring processes whether in the partner or cluster school. Therefore, visits ranged from a few hours to full school days on some occasions. During these visits there was a conscious intention to identify the type of leadership found at the school, the functionality of the quality assurance unit, development of the PCL, mentorship process, in addition to any major positive or negative remarks. As for the observations of the FOEs, these were to observe the workshops and to attend and observe the PCL meetings that took place throughout the project. All visits to schools and FOEs took place at different phases of the project where some were more intense than others. In some cases, the visits lasted for a few hours while in others it was a full day of class observation and meetings with PCL groups from the FOEs and schools. Phase 4: Document analysis. This phase included analysis of the following documents: • Monitoring and evaluation reports • Partner baseline reports • Management meeting reports • Reflection diaries • PCL meeting minutes Phase 5: Focus group discussion Focus group discussions (FGD) are typically set to emphasise a specific topic with four to eight interviewees (Bryman, 2012; Creswell, 2012). FGDs provide opportunities to investigate how individuals could collectively make sense of a phenomenon (Bray, Adamson, & Mason, 2014). To ensure clarity and feasibility of the FGD, the protocol was piloted first then adjusted before being administered to the target groups (FOEs and schools). The core research team of four in addition to a student researcher were trained by the PI on how to identify what to look for. The team rehearsed the whole process as a pilot, including what notes to write and how to visualise and map the seating arrangement of the FGD members. The piloting also included an emphasis on observing and documenting the nonverbal communication of participants. Focus group discussions (FGD) were used in this phase to collect data related to both the structure and the process of the school-university (SU) partnership as a focus of research question one, RQ1 ‘What is the nature of the partnership in the project (in terms of both its structure and process of formulation)’ (See Appendix 6). The FGD also aimed to identify various levels of impact of such a partnership between schools and universities. A total of seven FGDs were conducted with faculty members, school principals and teachers from the partnerships between Faculties of Education and the core partner schools (Professional Development Schools, PDS). The membership size of the FGD, as well as the number of FGDs needed, was determined according to the size of the FOE team. Helwan university had the largest FOE group of 30 members so we chose to have 3 FDGs. Both Alexandria and AinShams universities had between 15-20 members, therefore we had 2 FGDs for each. The following details show when each FGD was conducted and in which school: For Ain Shams university, two FGDs 45 Backings are generalizations making explicit the body of experience relied on to establish the trustworthiness of the ways of arguing applied in any particular case. Rebuttals are the extraordinary or exceptional circumstances that might undermine the force of the supporting arguments…qualifiers are phrases that show what kind of degree of reliance is to be placed on the conclusions, given the arguments available to support them (Erduran, 2007; Simosi, 2003). This model is closer to the latent level of thematic analyses. Limitations The research is not without limitations; some relate to the type of research design namely case study. The main limitation of case studies relates to the limitation of generalising the findings due to its contextual nature (Sim, 1998). Nonetheless, the intent of this study is not to generalise results but to understand the context and how this is reflected in the data findings. Cronbach (1975) argued that no research outcome is generalizable after accounting for local, contextual conditions. There were contextual limitations related to accessibility to the research locations due to schools and faculties of education being occupied at various timings of the year for exams and grading at the end of the semester and end of the year. It was also not possible to carry out observations throughout all phases of the study due to time limitations, access and approvals to visit sites, school days were short, and exams in schools. 46 The Process, Structure, Outcomes and Impact Process The inception phase The very first step in the process of fostering a school-university partnership began with the FOE teams visiting the schools that were selected by the local MOETE directorates in partnership with the three faculties once the security clearances had been obtained. The steps undertaken by the faculties were to first introduce the project to the schools and the concepts of professional development, enacting partnerships and of creating Peer Communities of Learners (PCLs). The next step was to conduct a needs assessment study with a school profile to familiarize themselves with the schools. In a third instance, faculty members conducted weekly or regular visits to the schools, which were largely mentorship sessions and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) for the introduction of new pedagogical practices and teaching concepts. The process of the initial visits began in the summer of 2017 after the FOEs had prepared tools, with the support of AUC, to conduct rapid ethnographies of each school as well as a needs assessment tool. The first encounters were mostly fraught with a great deal of scepticism and resistance as reported by Egyptian faculty from the three universities. School teachers reacted by saying we have been trained so many times before and these trainings were useless. The schools represented a wide range of urban educational contexts and cultures. Obviously, the diversity gave rise to differentiated reactions to the partnership. Like in many parts of the world, those schools that had the most difficult circumstances in terms of socio-economic conditions of the students, classroom density, teacher shortage and disciplinary challenges were the ones least desiring the partnership and resisting it till later stages of the project. This was observed by the AUC research team while conducting a focused group discussion in the Lilly School after two years of the life of the project. Both the observations by the team and the accounts during the focused group discussion led to the belief that the Lilly school was particularly challenged with regard to teacher shortage, class density, and student discipline. There seemed to be a culture of violence and misbehaviour in that school. The teachers who met with us described the faculty of education mentors as being highly idealistic and romantic when suggesting teaching strategies and solutions to classroom management. One quote which clearly represented the views of all the teachers was when one teacher stated that “we have discussions with the mentors and they suggest things to us that do not work for this school as their suggestions do not match our reality” (Focus Group Discussion in Lilly school on March 20th, 2019 with teachers and faculty members from Helwan university). Moreover, those schools with the greatest amount of involvement and support from their leadership were the keenest on the partnership. During a focus group discussion with the Peer Community of Learners PCL group in the Sunflower school in a suburban area, several teachers commented on the benefits of the partnership and one of them clearly stated that “the exchange of experience between our school and faculty members from the university has clearly led to us discovering new talent in our school that we had not noticed in the past.” The Sunflower school is one which enjoyed outstandingly supportive leadership as asserted by the staff in the school who described their leader as a woman with vision and a sense of commitment to a cause and who always stood behind them and supported their innovations. (Focus Group Discussion on March 17th with school teachers and faculty from Helwan university). Similarly, in the Jasmin school in another suburb, members of the PCL were very aware of the benefits of the partnership and clearly expressed those in several meetings and in the recently produced school magazine (Visit and Focus Group Discussion on March 11th with members of the school PCL and a mentor from Ain Shams University). Schools with a long-standing research relationship with the university also manifested signs of keenness to continue the partnership. Moreover, those schools in general that create a partnership around participatory action research to solve some of the school problems in many cases manage to flatten power relations and hence strengthen and improve the partnership (Wood & McAteer, 2017). Members of the Rose school had for some time been engaged with a faculty of Education in a participatory action research project 47 which involved school teachers and faculty members. During interviews and a focused group discussion, members of the school PCL clearly expressed their excitement about the partnership. Galwat, a senior school teacher, admitted that when the faculty team arrives at the school she and her colleagues literally jump and run down the stairs in utter excitement to meet them as every moment brings with it some learning. Every detail of the encounter is so rich so they record it on WhatsApp and share it with the whole school (Interview with Mrs. Galwat a senior teacher at Rose school, February 20th, 2019). Moreover, still in the Rose School who had expressed how much they valued the learning with and from the university faculty, during a recorded discussion members of the Peer Community of Learners PCL explained how three of the teachers had been transferred to other schools and yet despite challenges, remoteness and their busy schedules, they continued to attend the regular PCL meetings at their old school (Focus Group Discussion, February 20th, 2019). All in all, the faculty of education manifested greater interest in the partnership at first than the public schools. Looking at several case studies of schooluniversity partnerships this does not seem unusual. The level of desire often seems unequal between both institutions normally favouring the university faculty (Osajima, 1989). Trust was not sufficiently built at that early stage. Many teachers were suspicious of what the faculty could offer given that they were classified as being theoretical, irrelevant and mostly living in their ivory tower. Teachers in the Lilly school clearly expressed their thoughts about the situation when stating that faculty in university may be strong in reading, gaining knowledge and research however when it comes to dealing with primary school students deeply plagued with violent behaviour those professors do not know what to do and they do not have the answers or experience (Focus Group Discussion from the Lilly School on March 20th, 2019). Many of the teachers could not relate to a partnership that they perceived as taxing on their energy, time and other resources when their salaries were so low and level of appreciation negligible. During several visits to the Daisy school with mentors from university between December 2018 and January 2019, during discussions school teachers bitterly complained about their very low salary, the lack of appreciation from authorities and their general low status. They made it very clear that to fulfil the terms of the partnership they needed to be exempted from some of the tasks they were required to do at school. The mentor from university in charge of the Daisy school reported that teachers resisted the meetings and the formation of a PCL as they felt at first it was not useful and also it taxed on their time. They said they could make better use of their time. This was of course especially true in a context where many teachers were engaged in private tutoring. In addition, those teachers that felt powerless were most likely not to welcome the partnership. Ishak from the Daffodil school explained that he suffered from many problems such as low salaries, no incentives, in addition to a feeling of powerlessness and not being appreciated. In his own words, he explained that “as a teacher I am completely frustrated I feel like the system is neglecting us so we abuse each other, then teachers abuse parents and finally they abuse the students” (Interview, March 18th, 2019). The power relations between school and university were perceived as asymmetrical such that there was no acknowledgment of the various ways of knowing. People who feel their knowledge is being respected are more likely to believe in their capacity to change their reality (Wood & McAteer, 2017). Evolution phase: Building rapport Those faculty and teachers who had a sense of empowerment and regarded themselves as agents of change were more open to the partnership and saw opportunities for reform. Members of the Rose team were very proud of being part of the SUP4PCL project and had in fact designed their own logo for the project. Salwa a seasoned teacher from the Rose school declared “most teachers are interested in making more money, this is not me. I would like to be able to change things and renew myself” (Interview, February 20th, 2019). Dr. Jameela a mentor from University described the team from Rose school as having been totally convinced that together they could bring about transformation (Interview with Dr. Jameela, February 20th, 2019). The teams from the Rose school and those from the Gardenia school attested to the fact that they had transformed and changed into a culture of trusting and sharing ideas (Focus Group Discussion in Rose school, February 20th, 2019, and Focus Group Discussion in the Gardenia school, March 6th, 2019). 48 Ola from the Iris school another example, clearly stated that the project contributed to increasing her sense of empowerment and urge to transform her school (Interview March 5th, 2019). This relationship between empowerment and the willingness to join a partnership for the sake of reform and transformation seems to be true of other contexts (Osajima, 1989). Several important approaches and events warmed up the partnership. Some continued to support the partnership grow and yield fruitful results whilst others caused a setback but were quickly rectified and reversed the negative impact. The first approach was building rapport. The faculty mentors visiting the schools had been very well-coached throughout the various activities (work packages) in the project and hence were for the most part very humble and mindful of the classical divide and hierarchy between the two institutions and strands of knowledge; theory and practice, and thus, they focused on building very personalized relationships at first before moving into the professional domain. This process of building rapport took time. They socialized and shared food and drinks together. This clearly broke the ice and yielded positive results in some instances faster than others. In addition, the faculty mentors explained to the school teachers that they were genuinely interested in their needs and ideas on how to enhance them professionally. In an interview, Nawal, a teacher from the Daisy school, complained that teachers had been neglected for very long and their capacities underestimated. The fact that the partnership project paid attention to them and acknowledged their potential, meant the world to them (Interview with Nawal, February 23rd, 2019). Meanwhile Mosaad a male teacher from the Daffodil school stated that “it was the first time ever that university came to school to listen to us and hear our opinions. This brought about rapid results and signalled to us that the university people care about us” (Interview, March 18th, 2019). Ishak a middle-aged teacher also from the Daffodil school expressed his support of the project as he stated “now we have a voice that will be heard” (Interview with Ishak, March 18th, 2019). The university mentors truly applied all the signs of humility that Freire would advise for mentors and leaders entering into dialogue whereby people regardless of their level and status are getting together to genuinely co-construct knowledge and attempt together to learn more than they know (Freire, 1970). Academics would learn more about practice and practitioners more about theory. Finally, the university mentors were able to manifest genuine empathy for the complexity and challenging jobs teachers had. During a focused Group discussion in the Rose school (February 20th, 2019), teachers attested to the great respect they received from the very junior faculty members who mentored them. The senior teachers noted how these young mentors showed a great deal of humility. In the Iris school, (Focus Group Discussion, March 5th, 2019) the faculty mentors in the PCL admitted to their past ignorance of the complexity and heavy load teachers carried while performing their calling. They now saw the reality of a teacher’s life within their own environment in schools. They offered their empathy and felt that they wanted to share in carrying this tremendous load. Teachers in the same school expressed their deep gratitude to the feelings expressed by the mentors and declared that this was sufficiently motivating and satisfying even when the mentors were not always able to present them with solutions to their many challenges and problems. Dr. Latifa a mentor from University expressed her empathy with the teachers’ hardship, expressing her emotions she stated “I am so excited to be in the field and to witness the difficulties teachers encounter in schools” (Interview, March 18th, 2019). These same feelings were expressed on numerous occasions during our field research. The nature of the activities planned out by the project allowed for some direct contact with international faculty during workshops and seminars at the university. This was very much appreciated by both Egyptian faculty and school teachers. During the focus group discussion held with the Sunflower school PCL (March 16th, 2019), teachers testified to the great benefit they had experienced from meeting the European experts and partners in the project. They actually pointed out that they had specifically noticed the team spirit among the European team and wished to emulate it. They remembered the names of the international mentors and wished to see them more often. The Rose school expressed the same sentiments and more (February 20th, 2019). Establishing teacher labs at university The project had initially promised the schools some equipment such as laptops and data show. Unfortunately, this was later not allowed by EU regulations hence all 49 the equipment was placed in the faculties of education. This at first shook the trust and disrupted the smoothness of the relationships, however it was very quickly turned into a positive development when the university teams established labs on their premises which they devoted to the school teachers. The teachers then felt respected and enjoyed the fact that they were now more frequently connected to the university especially when they were invited to workshops and seminars that took their expressed needs into account and made them feel that they were listened to. Nawal from the Daisy school declared that she had been very well supported by her mentors and that whatever idea she shared with them their response would be “let us make it happen” (Interview, February 24th, 2019). More importantly the relationship became even stronger when many teachers and faculty had a great sense of empowerment as manifested by the innovations they were able to bring about in the schools. Mohga a university mentor for the Iris school announced her sense of great empowerment by virtue of being charged with transforming a school with her other colleagues in the team “each one of us brings in our own ideas” (Interview, March 4th, 2019). Consolidating and institutionalizing the relationship: teachers in the driver’s seat In the Rose school during a focus group discussion, one teacher declared that she was new in the school and noted that in comparison to other schools she had worked in, the training and quality assurance unit was very effective and was able to spread all the new ideas from the university mentors to the whole school (February 20th, 2019). The teachers from the Daisy school had come up with an innovative idea namely to invite the students in school to go visit the university and write an article for their media class where they would interview faculty and visit the university library and faculty of education. The university mentor took on the idea and started to prepare for the activity (Focus Group Discussion, February 24th, 2019). In many situations, the teachers were beginning to be in the drivers’ seat when determining the topics to be discussed in their meetings. During a focused group discussion conducted with the teachers and faculty mentors of the Rose school, teachers were asserting how there were no topics presented or discussed during their regular meetings that had not emerged from the teacher’s expressed needs. They recounted the instances and topics that had been in response to their requests such as learning and teaching strategies and aids. They would always, in fact, hang all the training aids and presentations on the walls of the training unit space so all teachers could benefit, and to them it was also a way of advertising the existence of the schooluniversity partnership they were so proud of (Focus Group Discussion with the Rose school teachers and mentors, February 20th, 2019). The faculty mentor in the Daisy school explained how each of the mentorship sessions and PCL meetings had a different topic that he insisted be selected and determined by the teachers in the school (Interview, February 2nd, 2019). Finally, the relationship in the process of collaborative development became stronger as the administrative staff and middle-range policymakers became more involved in the partnership. This is true of Deans of faculties of Education as well as Directors of Ministry of Education local departments and administrations as well as supervisors. 50 Looking at the literature on Professional Development Schools it would seem that some of the phases of developing collaboration between university and schools were short-circuited in the process by the project objectives and activities. In other words, the partnership had developed institutionally through a project that was largely initiated by MEIHE in partnership with the faculties of education. Hence, the first two phases of formation and conceptualization were already predetermined by the project which aimed at creating 45 Professional Development Schools, 75 school mentors, 75 targeted peer communities of learners, enhanced and developed quality assurance units in the 45 PDSs, as well as classroom materials focused on STEAM, Global Citizenship Education, Sustainable Development and Special Education, Needs SEN. The other three stages towards collaboration namely; development, implementation and evaluation/reformation were done in concert with all stakeholders who had an interest in the collaborative relationship (Dixon & Ishler, 1992). Through several local and international technical meetings, the partnership reached consensus around the thematic areas of intervention and the modality of work which focused largely on multisector teamwork based on student-centered pedagogies of active learning and relying on inquiry and research. Moreover, all team members agreed on the value of collaboration and building partnerships. They also agreed on the significance of egalitarian and empowering relationships. Although the process was not totally homogeneous in all instances with some schools reaching a very high level of trust and collaboration with the university, it may be quite safe to observe that the partnership had evolved quite steadily through several stages on the continuum of trust, collegiality, professional development and community with learning and a commitment to growth and inquiry at its centre. We tend to agree with others that becoming a school-university partnership with a PDS model is not an either-or matter nor is it without setbacks, but rather it is a prolonged journey of becoming measured on a continuum of trust and collaboration and all the essential features of a successful partnership (Parker, Parsons, Groth, & Brown, 2016). Structure “There is no single “right way” to establish a partnership” (Callahan & Martin, 2007, p.143). Goodlad (1998) defines partnerships as “a deliberately designed, collaborative arrangement, between different institutions working together to advance self-interest and solve common problems” (as cited in Handscomb, Gu & Varley, 2014, p.12). In the case of enhanced partnerships, these are usually seen as complex, adhering to fuzzy processes where the views of the various stakeholders and their respective contributions are seen as carrying equal weight and value (as cited in Handscomb, Gu & Varley, 2014). As mentioned in the introduction, partnerships in the PDS model evolve through many levels. Regardless of the level attained, the nature and structure of each school-university partnership may be classified in accordance to an endless number of characteristics and variables (Callahan & Martin, 2007; Day, 1998; Handsomb, Gu, & Varley, 2014; Reed, Kochan, & Ross, 2001). We will select the most relevant of these in order to be able to design a profile of the nature of the Egypt SUP4PCL partnership. In accordance to the leading institution in the initiative, hierarchy, power and the direction of decision making and the change patterns. Unilateral versus reciprocal change patterns. In other words, whether the partnership is university-driven, schoolled or co-developed in neutrality. Normally the power relations here play a role as there is the perception of a hierarchy of knowledge wherein university is always in the dominant position while school-based knowledge is regarded as inferior. This description of the definition also takes into account the decision making patterns. In the case of the SUP4PCL project it was made clear from the onslaught of the partnership that not a single institution or partner would wield power over the other. All voices would be equally heard. Through the interviews and FGD we noted the gradual breaking down of the hierarchical barriers. Hence while at the beginning, admittedly the initiative and decisions were made by the university, as the partnership became more developed and solidified, power relations were levelled and more decisions as to the subjects of professional development and dialogue were being mutually decided upon and in fact on many 51 occasions led by the school teachers. Dalila a faculty member from Alexandria mentoring teachers from the Gardenia school expressed herself during an interview on March 4th, 2019 “the partnership is a very special and positive experience it has taught us to break down hierarchies and to deal with each other as human beings regardless of academic levels and degrees even among the teams at university,” Several teachers on the other hand during all focused group discussions mentioned that whereas at first the agendas and meetings were set by faculty members, teachers very soon had a voice and expressed their needs while selecting the topics to be handled during workshops and meetings. In accordance to whether it is based on individual relationships and collaboration or institutional ones in a structured way. In other words, whether the communication and dialogue was a structured one occurring between institutions and not individuals. In some PDS models the collaboration emerges as a result of one or more university faculty members building relationships with school practitioners for the purpose of research or the advancement of practicum. In the case of the SUP4PCL initiative, the partnership was truly institutional and developed its own structure. The partnership was designed in accordance to a signed protocol between the National Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Education. Moreover, the relationship between each university and the schools appended to it was regulated by signed letters of agreement and protocols between the university and educational district bureau. Each University created a team of 12-24 faculty and a clear structure for mentorship where each school was endowed with from 1-4 mentors, depending on size. Meanwhile each school in collaboration with the university mentors created a Peer Community of Learners ranging from 5-20 teachers and practitioners in each school. Various tools were employed to establish databases and also to identify professional development needs of teachers and school practitioners. Other tools were developed for the purpose of initiating and sustaining reflection amongst teachers and educators whether individually or collectively. A few of the university mentors made reflection a regular practice amongst their school PCLs after each meeting or mentorship session. Meetings and mentorship sessions were held regularly almost once a week and workshops were formally organized both in schools and at university with the involvement of the training and quality assurance units in the schools. The training and quality assurance units were instrumental in spreading and replicating the workshops held on a wider scale in the school. In accordance to the focus of the partnership and the declared goals and objectives. In other words, whether it is Initial teacher education, Continuing professional development CPD, or consultancy and collaborative research. In the case of SUP4PCL, the purposes discussed and declared in several of the meetings have been, maximizing student learning through the development and implementation of exemplary practice, engaging in sustained reflection and inquiry on practice for the purpose of enhancing exemplary practice and student achievement and engaging in meaningful ongoing professional development CPD, to prepare effective new teachers. The project was clear about the various roles; thus faculty at Egyptian faculties of education were to be coached by European faculty in an egalitarian environment of exchange. Meanwhile Egyptian faculty from university were to mentor school teachers. Teachers were also expected to mentor their peers, especially when expanding the school clustering networks. Of the four ordinances and principles of PDS namely the preparation of new and veteran teachers, university faculty development, inquiry directed at the improvement of practice and last but not least, enhanced student achievement, the most pronounced in our case was the first one in the form of Continuous Professional Development CPD for teachers and practitioners, along with university faculty development. Both these two were essential targets. The third mission statement or principle of inquiry directed at the improvement of practice this is slowly emerging in the project as teachers are preparing to participate in the end of project conference. Since February 2019 all university mentors initiated workshops and mentorship sessions to introduce inquiry and research to the PCLs in their schools. Prior to that date in December 2018, five of the partner schools to Alexandria university were invited to participate in a workshop on action research organized by the Middle East Institute for Higher Education MEIHE from the Graduate School of Education at the American University in Cairo. The schools were initiated into research and those participating in the workshop were encouraged to spread the training to others in their schools as well as the 13 schools they were to cluster 52 with in the current phase. Since the summer of 2019 in June, all mentors were engaged with school teachers to conduct participatory action research. As for the fourth mission namely enhanced student achievement this was clearly the objective of all PCLs as expressed in the seven focus group discussions conducted as well as the interviews. Indicators on the achievement of that objective are further discussed when looking at impact. In accordance to the type of outcomes, in other words, whether it is ideological transformation, capacity building, or generativity. The SUP4PCL initiative had a little bit of all these typologies developed by Christopher Day (Day, 1998, p. 815). Mentors from the university were keen to develop some form of ideological homogeneity amongst the teachers particularly with regard to activity-based learning, cooperative learning and integrating curriculum and lesson plans. In addition, the project had introduced such themes as Global Citizenship Education, sustainable development and the STEAM approach. It had also drawn attention to the importance of special needs education and the celebration of difference. The following figure 13 clearly portrays the ideological inclination of the project and was used as a guideline for the development of materials. It encompassed subjects, environment and dimensions of learning. Figure 13. Project conceptual framework In addition to the ideological transformation, the element of capacity building was quite pronounced whereby the leaders of these projects were trained to become change agents and through a process of challenging but supportive dialogue over time, led by a credible, authoritative and empathetic team of university mentors, there was a rise in professional and personal self-confidence. These and many other results will be discussed in more detail in the section devoted to outcomes. The generative aspect of creating joint research had materialized in one of the schools through another project supporting action research, however there are continuous efforts to expand the outputs of the partnership to that level of generating research. The level of complexity. The SUP4PCL initiative proved to be quite a complex undertaking. Some remind us that if classroom teaching is complex, which we all admit it is, how much more complex is the work necessary for building partnerships within a PDS model, one that takes into account different institutions with their diverse cultures, different contexts, different stakeholders and even different teaching traditions (Dresden, Blankenship, Capuozzo, Nealy, & Tavernier, 2016). The project invited on board several and diverse stakeholders rendering the partnership truly complex. Although the initial partnership involved only faculties of education in the selected universities, schools in the Helwan, Alexandria and Ain Shams district proceeded to contact other faculties for an expanding partnership especially faculties of science and medicine to promote their newly acquired skills in integrated teaching and learning. Hence, other faculties became stakeholders. Moreover, at the university level, the core teams reached out also to other disciplines beyond their own departments such as language, English literature and beyond. Students in all schools became visible stakeholders of the partnership and very soon they were themselves visiting the university premises and joining the school PCL. Student teachers from university also eagerly joined the partnership and on several school visits were visibly engaged and joined the mentorship/ training sessions offered at school. The training and quality assurance units of each school were very much part of the partnership and in almost all the schools the focal person of the unit was also a member of the school PCL. On the international level the partners in the initiative from the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany were very much present in all the various significant dialogues with school teams on mentorship, material 53 development, and the formation of PCLs. The international partners were also partnered with the Egyptian faculties of education in a twinning arrangement. At first, the partnership between the European and Egyptian universities was generic and amorphous. With time a purposefully designed and AUC led twinning arrangement was established between Helwan and Martin Luther universities, Alexandria and Northampton, Ain Shams and Limerick and finally the American University and Leicester. The twinning involved all kinds of activities with a mentorship component and allowed the partners to move to significant domains of inquiry, research and professional development. These twinning arrangements were sealed with formal Memorandums of Understanding for sustainable partnerships. Policymakers were also part of the mix as ministry heads of departments for quality assurance, training and supervision were all included in the complex mix. Several information sessions and activities were created to strengthen the partnership with middle-range policymakers and school supervisors were always invited to workshops. On the national level the policy dialogue also continues through various channels such as committee meetings in the Supreme Council of Universities SCU, meetings with policymakers and high-level officials at the Ministry of Higher Education MOHE, as well as policy meetings with high-level officials at the Ministry of Education and Technical Education MOETE. Key issues placed on the policy table are largely how to create sustainable partnerships, how to mainstream the school-university partnership movement and how to create policies and structures to support the reform approach. Media is often invited to schools and is a growing partner. Last but not least, parents and communities were invited into the partnership particularly with regard to special needs education sensitization as well as inviting parents and the community to support their children when engaged in integrated and multidisciplinary learning. Not only have the relationships expanded to all the above-mentioned stakeholders, but in addition a system of school clustering was established whereby each of the original mother schools was clustering with three other schools in the same district with the aim of expanding the partnership and the learning across many more boundaries. Hence, complexity comes with multiple complex relations, stakeholders, contexts, and what proponents of complexity theory have called an ‘Assemblage’ to signify the connection between all these components. Some have suggested that for the success of partnerships and PDS, complexity might be deemed necessary: “To produce innovation, more complexity is essential; more relationships, more sources of information more angles on the problem” (Rosabeth Moss Kanter, p. 148; Delueze & Guattari, 1987; as cited in Dresden, Blankenship, Capuozzo, Nealy, & Tavernier, 2016, pp.70-71). In accordance to the mode of learning; whether it is periodic or continuous. The SUP4PCL model is one that has developed virtuous circles of ongoing learning. The meetings and mentorship sessions have been very regular. In fact, in all situations, university mentors have visited and had mentorship sessions at least every other week. In Helwan, while teachers meet every week at school, mentors visit every other week. In the other universities, both in Alexandria and Ain Shams, the mentorship visits and sessions take place every week. These regular sessions are not withstanding the more formal workshops taking place in schools or universities. In Helwan, the total amount of such workshops reached 69. Most of the topics are demand-driven and emerge out of an avid appetite for learning amongst practitioners. One senior teacher is quoted to have expressed her deep gratitude during an interview when she stated “I am so grateful to God that I was able to learn new things before I retire” (Interview with Galwat a senior teacher in the Rose school on February 20th, 2019). Salwa from the Rose school during a focus group discussion declared in public “I have never missed a single session or meeting since the project began, we are learning so much” (Focus group, February 20th, 2019). This statement of how much teachers were learning in all domains was repeated in all interviews and focus group discussions. Faculty members also attested to how much they were learning about the practical side of teaching and the professional lives of teachers. The topics around which the workshops were organized were many, rich, diverse and covering a lot of ground. Examples of the various topics mentioned during the interviews and focus group discussions were: Leadership, integrated teaching, and learning, active learning, technology for enhancing learning, peer learning, cooperative learning, diversified learning strategies, the STEAM approach, Global citizenship Education, Education for Sustainable development, Special Needs Education, effective 54 communication, building and understanding character and personality. In all the universities, a school technology lab was established and placed in multi-purpose rooms where many activities take place with the support of the equipment procured by the project and the facilitation of university faculty. These labs have been instrumental in strengthening the process of school clustering and have also been very significant for the development of integrated teaching materials with the help of technology. In accordance to the geographic location of the partnership and whether it is co-located with the university. The literature on PD schools makes a very clear distinction between this model of partnership and laboratory schools that were first initiated by John Dewey early in the past century. In the case of the former, the partnership occurs with already existing public schools that are administered by an educational directorate or a district. The latter is usually built within the vicinity of a university hence collocated and is run by the faculty of education. The latter model focused on creating civic democratic students whilst the former was more concerned with developing effective teachers and exemplary teaching (Arnold, 2015). As earlier mentioned, our model for the SUP4PCL initiative follows the Professional Development School model and hence unlike the laboratory schools the partnership schools are not situated on the university campus but are within the neighbourhood of the selected three universities with the partner faculties of education in most cases. The conditions for selecting the partner schools with the faculties of education included geographical proximity, willingness to participate, the existence of quality assurance and training unit with preference given to those schools that already had some sort of ongoing relationship with the university through action research or other forms of inquiry. It was also important that the schools, even when belonging to the same educational administration, would represent some degree of diversity both in terms of level of performance as well as the socio-economic conditions of the students and communities. This indeed created differences in the varying levels of maturity of the partnership which was also mitigated by the nature of the leadership in each situation and within each of the partnering institutions. In accordance with the nature of the relationship whether it is one relying on information diffusion, supportive facilitation, or close cooperation (Day, 1988). What started as a long negotiation and brokering of a relationship between faculties of education and schools progressed in its stages of development to move from the university mentors diffusing information to a stage of supportive mentorship and facilitation finally reaching a strong structure in most cases of close cooperation with clear engines and drivers of change. The influential engines used in our model were the introduction of university mentors and the coaching of school mentors, both of whom invested in the creation of Peer Communities of Learners (PCLs) who in turn acted as self-contained interactive and home-grown mentors amongst themselves. Finally, the university mentors introduced inquiry and action research as a third engine in the more advanced stages of the partnership. Ultimately, these engines and processes created what some have called synergistic relationships within the partnership. These relationships focused on immediate assistance in the form of mentorship sessions and workshops on demand such as engaging the teachers and members of the PCL in activities and classroom instruction involving educational technology. The relationship also focused on exchanging curricular ideas wherein the faculty members and teachers engaged in the creation of curricular materials around Global Citizenship, STEAM, Sustainable Development and Special Education Needs SEN. Both faculty and teachers engaged in establishing integrated curriculum and subject matter whereby teachers from different disciplines were able to work together and create lesson plans and teach in classrooms in teams and in an integrated fashion. Finally, those kinds of relationships resulted in what some have called professional nudging, development, scaffolding or mentorship whereby faculty members as well as teachers were able to observe and consult each other as they prepared and delivered their classes. They were even in many cases able to share resources and borrow references from the faculties of education (Gilles, Wilson, & Elias, 2009). It must be however clarified that partnerships varied in terms of how much they reached this level of collaboration and reciprocal interaction. In accordance to whether it is an exclusive or expanding partnership. The evidence from the research shows that it is expanding in regards to the school teachers 61 university ranks reflection as the greatest impact from the project (Interview, March 20th, 2019). Several of the faculty members in universities engage in group collective reflection. Looking at the quantitative results of the interviews conducted, with regard to the closed questions asking participants to rank which area seemed to have the highest impact on them, 57% of all faculty members believed that the area most impacted was the self in learning and teaching. School teachers also scored highest on the self in learning and teaching and reached 53% of all responses. This particular component entailed issues such as the underlying values for their teaching and learning philosophy such as belief in rights, equity, democracy, and participation. It also included the underlying assumptions and perceptions of learners. It most importantly very much touched upon their reflective practices and how it impacted their teaching and learning. Clearly reflection, collaboration and the general climate created by the project resulted in innovations in classrooms and schools at large. Many new ideas were being implemented such as the complaint box, the school journal, and a coupon system to incentivize students who were well disciplined. Many teachers encouraged their students to recycle materials and use their creativity to produce new objects. Some teachers use gaming in teaching while some schools have initiated block scheduling. For assessment, some teachers have introduced student portfolios. At the university level, technology has many uses and some faculty members use it to monitor their practicum students through blogs. Faculty members have introduced research courses with particular emphases on action research in their undergraduate level for the first time along with innovative pedagogies. The closed questions in the interviews showed that the partnership has impacted the participants in their teaching practices to a very large extent. For teachers, it was the next item after reflection scoring 35%, and for faculty, it ranked as a third but important item at 21%. Both teachers and faculty attested to the fact that the innovative practices and initiatives, as well as the changes in teaching and learning, were due to a very robust system of mentorship put in place. Mentorship in the project appeared in many forms; there was formal one on one mentorship, group mentorship, peer mentorship and even online mentorship. Teachers in the Lilly school expressed their very deep gratitude to the university mentors. With their support, they have learnt and practiced the integration of subject matter as well as new themes such as Global Citizenship. They also had practiced and learned new teaching strategies that had led to greater student engagement even in classrooms that had sixty students or more. In that same school, teachers also recognized the impact of peer mentorship on lesson planning (Focus Group Discussion, March 20th, 2019). Teachers from the Sunflower school expressed their gratitude to the university mentors and how that resulted in developing their own mentors in school. One of their school mentors won an award for being the best mentor in the whole district. In the same school, teachers also admitted to the great benefits acquired from being mentored occasionally by the European partners (Focus Group Discussion, March 16th, 2019). A teacher from the Rose school declared: “it is so wonderful to live this experience of cooperation and partnership. We have been far from the university for so long and we need to keep in touch…we also learned so much from our exposure to the Europeans”. Teachers explained how they also benefitted from the practicum students on field training in their school, who not only taught them new strategies but also facilitated borrowing books from the university library which helped them create their own materials (Focus Group Discussion, February 20th, 2019). International literature and reviews indicate that mentorship is indeed a great way of improving teachers’ self-efficacy and professionalism. The good coaching and mentorship not only lead to higher levels of empowerment, but also have great positive impacts on the organizational culture of schools and other comparable institutions. An additional impact of good coaching and mentoring is the visibly increased reflectivity at the institutional level (Lord, Atkinson & Mitchell, 2008). Coaching and mentoring have positive effects on the mentors and are regarded as professional development for them (Hudson, 2013). More importantly, mentorship not only leads to teacher empowerment, mentor and teacher learning, and transformation, but also proved to have an impact on the quality of student learning and ultimately student achievement (Ali, Wahi, & Yamat, 2018; Smith & Lunch, 2014). 62 In the next few paragraphs of this section, we will be examining three more deep levels of transformations and outcomes namely; the sense of empowerment, and largely related to that and previous sections on the evolution of educators’ professional identity, is the way in which their motivation for learning and performing proved to be largely intrinsic which can become a significant factor in the sustainability of our initiative for reform. Lastly also very much related to those two deep levels of outcomes is the way all this actually impacted the students and their achievement. Quantifiable results from the tool, measuring empowerment, new habits of mind such as reflection, and philosophy of education, show that the respondents from the various universities and professional partner schools were well aware of concepts such as reflection and mostly practiced it before, during and after performing an activity. Respondents had acquired those attitudes towards teaching, assessment, and relating to students that had a proven record and evidence of success in the literature on good practices. They chose the responses that indicated a good understanding of progressive pedagogies such as allowing students to learn at their own pace, having good relations with students, measuring their progress over time not necessarily through testing, and encouraging lifelong learning. Finally, the results also show they had a sense of empowerment and felt that they could work at professional development in their institutions, they could meet with parents when needed, they were collaborative, helped colleagues and could practice participatory research in their institutions. The qualitative results from the interviews corroborated those results particularly with regard to empowerment. Both teachers and faculty members revealed that they had been greatly empowered professionally and personally by joining the partnership. Ebtissam, from the Iris school, expressed how very empowered she felt by the new positive culture that is encouraging collaboration, which is emerging in her school. She reported feeling a lot more confident and had developed a great sense of self-efficacy. She felt she could make things happen. She also admitted feeling like an agent of change and had acquired power through the love expressed in the team and the positive energy (Interview, March 5th, 2019). Ola from the same school had the very same feelings (March 5th, 2019). Galwat from the Rose school believed that she had truly become empowered by virtue of obtaining student engagement (Interview, February 20th, 2019). Dr. Latifa from university declared that she believed the whole management style of the project was indeed very empowering (Interview, March 18th, 2019). Dr. Jamila from another university, who felt so empowered by the partnership, declared “I am still very junior at university and no one usually listens to me, but when I go to my school, the ideas I present are so well received and with the school team, we are able to implement them. It is very rewarding and empowering. I would like to be an agent of change and I do feel that with time I can contribute to the changing of values in the school culture” (Interview, February 20th, 2019). Dr. Dalal from the same university and team confirms that “I feel most empowered at school because we are a very united teamwe are one hand and we support each other. When I look at my reflection diary, I realize how much I achieved” (Interview, February 23rd, 2019). Similar quotes can be pulled out from the other two universities. Dr. Donia, from one of the universities, believes she has become an agent of change with her own students (Interview, March 20th, 2019), likewise another member of the mentor team in a second university explains how empowered she felt through her relationship with Martin Luther faculty when she was able to publish an article in German in a peer-reviewed journal (March 16th, 2019). In the third university, the coordinator of the project, who is also a school mentor, felt greatly empowered to lead her team even though many of them were quite senior to her. She feels that she now has a voice at the university level and is a strong agent of change (March 6th, 2019). Much of the literature on teacher and educator empowerment emphasize that this is usually a state of being that occurs as a result of greater decision making possibilities, professional growth, improved status among colleagues, self-efficacy and having an impact (Sparapani, Mackay, Fuchs, Voydanoff, Pietras, & Rogers, 2015). Moreover, the research also points to the fact that with increased participation in learning communities a sense of empowerment results (Dail, Goodsite, & Sanders, 2018). 63 The renewed professional identity, successful mentorship, change in the organizational culture and sense of empowerment led to many teachers and mentors seeking satisfaction through achieving success with students and collaborating with peers. One could depict how motivation was now increasingly growing through altruistic and intrinsic values of why they were committed to their profession. The teachers in the SUP4PCL project had been asked to respond to a questionnaire in the middle stages of the project between December 2017 and February 2018, in which they were asked to explain why they joined the profession. Against all expectations and traditional perceptions of why teachers go into the profession, out of the 53 respondents who participated in the study the vast majority had joined the profession not out of pragmatic reasons or extrinsic motivation, but out of a sense of pride and belonging to the profession and the values and beliefs they upheld. It, therefore, did not come as a great surprise to discover that with the existing values teachers expressed, their intrinsic motivations would increase in tandem with the professional and career development they were receiving (Liu, Li, & Zou, 2018). The results of the questionnaire also showed that teachers were satisfied and content with their current occupation. They were continuing to be motivated in the partnership despite all the very many challenges. They were joining activities simply because the activity was satisfying and or enjoyable (Gultekin, & Acar, 2014). Lamis, a teacher from the Lilly school, claims to be much more motivated to practice reflection and do research on her own teaching, as she noted it made a difference in student performance and engagement (Interview, March 20th, 2019). During focus group discussions with teachers in the Rose school, it was clear that they all willingly participated in mentorship sessions and were very keen even though there were no financial or any other tangible promotion incentives (February 20th, 2019). Safaa a teacher in the Rose school describes how motivated she is by the project. She is very attached to the project team. She, in fact, wishes to sustain all the transformational gains made including the formation of the PCL and all the collaborative work that ensued (Interview, February 20th, 2019). Ishaq from the Daffodil school explains “It is not about more money; I really genuinely want to learn”. Ishaq has in fact signed up for further graduate studies at the university as a result of the partnership (Interview, March 18th, 2019). Still within the same school another colleague, Mazen says, “the real prize and trophy I take away from this experience in my school is that my students are learning, have achieved good results and have become well behaved”. Mazen expressed how much he enjoys his work with students and the love they express to him. It pleases him to observe how much they enjoy his classes. Although his school is one of the very disadvantaged ones with a lot of students practicing child labour and living in a pervasive culture of violence (Interview, March 18th, 2019). Dr. Latifa who is the mentor in the Daffodil school admits to the hard circumstances of the school and says “when I met these teachers with such difficult circumstances and such high potential I became very motivated to contribute and support them. I identify very much with the aims of this project”. She then went on to say, “My team and I have invested a great deal of effort for this partnership so we would like to see it continue and become sustainable” (Interview, March 18th, 2019). Dr. Mohga, a mentor for the Iris school, mentioned during an interview “we are learning so much from this project at all levels which is what motivates us to continue to work so hard” (Interview, March 4th, 2019). Dr. Dalila, a mentor for the Gardenia school, believes that what motivated schools greatly to join and stay in the partnership was having the European partners on board (Interview, March 6th, 2019). Dr. Mamdouh, a mentor from university, expresses his great sense of commitment to the school he mentors. He continues to be very motivated even though due to management issues at his University and the novelty of joining international projects, he had not received any project remuneration. He continues to visit the school informally beyond the designated days for mentorship and meetings. He admitted to being fascinated with the concept of the PCL (Interview, Februry 24th, 2019). These were, of course, some of the significant examples of intrinsic motivation, there are of course other team members from university who are a lot more motivated by extrinsic factors such as project remuneration, promotion, and publication. Teachers, in general, manifested a lot more intrinsic motivation and a very large number of them described how the partnership and the mentorship they received resulted in visible student improvement of learning, greater attendance and even better achievement scores. 64 Teachers from the Sunflower school were very eager to describe the impact the partnership had on students. Students claimed that they were now a great deal more engaged in their learning. They create their own projects and conduct research. According to the teachers, student absence had greatly decreased and their attendance had risen due to the new teaching practices including active learning and role play. Teachers were also using innovative strategies to further engage students in the management of activities in the school such as the school broadcasting and morning lines. Students were engaged in the school’s improvement plan. Students were even engaged in teaching their peers during formal classes. Many of the students now aspired to be teachers. This school came first in the whole district in terms of developing student leadership, creativity and capacity to teach. The school teachers conducted a survey at school where they asked the students about their level of satisfaction and students were now expressing happiness at being in school. Moreover, the students were now able to reflect and evaluate their teachers’ performance. We actually met some of the students engaged in research and projects and one of them had been awarded a research scholarship in the USA (Focus Group Discussion, March 16th, 2019). We were able to obtain the end of year cumulative official scores for the second preparatory grade and the school had consistently been doing well for three consecutive academic years despite the increase in student activities and community outreach. Having students teach in classes was not particular to the Sunflower school. Teachers in the Rose school also explained how they developed this initiative of the “young student teacher”. They also described all the research activities that were led by students. Some had researched Nano technology-related topics, others were researching the concept of freedom and yet another team was researching the political economy of the Islamic State (February 20th, 2019). Teachers from the Orchid school explained how their students were now involved in recycling activities and projects (Focus Group Discussion, March 17th, 2019). Teachers from most schools asserted that student achievement had improved. We were able to exceptionally obtain comparative scores from two schools in Alexandria spanning three years with the start date of the project and the end date representing the current before the last year of the project. In the first case, the results pertained to the preparatory levels one and two, in the Gardenia school. The school showed consistent good results and good scores with slight improvements during the second year of implementation 2017/2018 in social studies and science for the first preparatory year and in all subjects for the second preparatory year. As for the Iris school, the scores for the fourth primary grade had notably improved in Arabic, English, Social Studies and dramatically improved in science. The only decline in grades was in religious studies and specifically Islamic religion. We believe this is an area where more work needs to be done. We do, however, have sufficient indicators for now to show the potential these partnerships have for improving student achievement. 65 A Day in the Jasmin Professional Development School by the PI of the project on March 11, 2019 As I walked into the very large school early in the morning, I was met by a friendly smiling headmaster who seemed to know the names of most of the children he met on his way. The children seemed very comfortable with the headmaster running towards him to get a morning greeting, hug or pet. The KG children had prepared a small play in the courtyard, where they created a small garden with flowers they had made themselves. The little boys in the play were trying to pick up the flowers and ruin the garden, while the girls were trying to prevent them by explaining the damage to nature. The purpose of the play was to highlight what they had learned around sustainable development and also it had a gender dimension. I was later invited to attend a session organized by a group of young students who call themselves TEAM. These were a group of five who had prepared an amazing awareness session for their peers in school around the importance of having a goal and aim in life that one must attempt to achieve. They had researched the topic and used many interesting learning aids including audio-visual ones to capture the attention of the other students. They were also seeking to visit other neighbouring schools to spread awareness. The TEAM members had created this activity after they had visited the University of Ain Shams and observed a similar activity by young club members. During the next class visit, I was invited to a grade one class, where students were studying ants in a multidisciplinary way and also role-playing ants. They learned about ants biologically, but also discussed their cooperative behaviour and collaboration in general. The class teacher then initiated a discussion about cooperation and some little boys recounted how they helped their mothers cook and wash dishes. They asserted that cooperation was time-saving and more efficient. During the break, in the teachers’ common room, three grade ten girls were observed teaching and tutoring younger slow learners in Arabic, Math and Science. The teachers were watching them and giving support and guidance. Also, during the break, a Christian and Moslem boy fought in public with signs of discrimination. A class was quickly organized around the concept of citizenship with three teachers of different subject matter led the discussion in the presence of the two boys. We then slipped next door to a small performance rehearsal by the music teacher and a group of children performed a song in sign language. A discussion then ensued on special needs and differences. The children would like everyone to learn the sign language. Mai, a prominent member of the PCL, a school mentor and one who has been a strong media ambassador for the partnership project, led an Arabic class in correct classical Arabic. Mai believes in the power of language. She is also a graduate student at the University of Ain Shams. During the class, Mai highlighted the importance of the different cultures in Egypt. She emphasized the significant values of Nubia to the joy of some of the children who came originally from there. Mai also created opportunities for child participation and active learning as the children constructed a play. At the end of the day, we all met in the teachers’ common room where Mai and her colleagues had a session with Dr. Salma the mentor from university. The atmosphere was a very warm and friendly one. Food and drinks were served. Teachers were very supportive of each other and collegial. Dr. Salma was very systematic and as she apparently does routinely, she asked the teachers to reflect on their teaching that day through a number of leading questions she had prepared. Later, Mai, who is the director of the quality assurance and training unit, started a discussion with Dr. Salma and the other colleagues to prepare for the next sessions in the school training unit. They also planned the logistics for the sessions along with the topics. Students were freely allowed into the room for hugs and the exchange of encouragement. Before I left, Mai offered me an invaluable gift which is her own written record of the partnership journey with photos and said “please come again often and send more people to visit us you just do not know what these visits mean to us.” 66 All the culturally deep transformations and attitudinal changes require group solidarity and for those concerned with theories of change, particularly educational organizational change, the process of change takes time. Groups go through a process of undoing or what Kurt Lewin calls unfreezing norms and questioning those especially when reflecting on their feeling of frustration and dissatisfaction with current conditions. The group then moves to the change stage wherein with the help of others, new norms are established. Finally, in the refreeze stage the new norms are internalized and adopted as the groups’ new way of life (Arnold, 2015). It can be very safely said that the changes and transformations occurring with the SUP4PCL partners were very real and fitted the criteria for marginal improvements in many domains. Furthermore, the transformations had occurred at more than one level of depth and clearly the participants, through group support, had gradually internalized those changes. It is also clear that these various new cultural norms, habits of mind and innovative practices reached the end target of all reforms namely the students. One observed and touched the impact it had on students in more than one way. This particular outcome deserves to be studied independently in future studies. Moreover, impact also needs to be traced by structural levels both at the national and institutional levels. At the national level, very big steps are being made through the partnership namely the signing of a Memorandum of understanding with two national line ministries and several protocol agreements with local educational districts. The concept of a schooluniversity partnership is quickly spreading and many in the peer communities of learners’ report encountering much demand when they meet with other schools beyond the partnership. Many are now ambassadors to the idea in the media and their own networks as they would like to see the idea spread. In addition, through existing channels of policy dialogue the project managed to establish the beginnings of an incentive system for university mentors, who at times were more extrinsically motivated, by altering the rules of promotion for faculty. Faculty members are now going to be given more points for joining international projects and for serving and doing research in schools. More needs to be done to further incentivize and support teacher learning and performance. As for the outcomes on the institutional level, some very meaningful results of this project have been the introduction of new syllabi for courses particularly on research in the undergraduate programs of University as well as the strengthening of international offices in all the partner universities towards increased internationalization. Finally, Peer Communities of learners (PCLs) are expanding at school and university. 67 Challenges, Conclusion and Way Forward Challenges Some of the challenges recurrently mentioned in the literature are structural, contextual and bureaucratic. With reference to the structural issues, it is clear that often times structures for collaboration are absent including physical structures such as spaces for meeting. This is particularly true of schools in Egypt and also at the university level some faculty do not meet regularly for seminars. Moreover, time is the most constraining factor with regard to both types of institutions. Finally, both institutions value very different types of achievements. Schools value most the amount of teaching and curriculum coverage achieved, while universities value research and publication most of all and often times not done collaboratively. Involvement of faculty in PDS projects is not considered as “academic endeavours”. Many of the challenges have to do with lack of recognition of the value of creating such symbiotic partnerships. This is not specific to Egypt but may be found in other contexts (Ambrose, Natale, Murphey, & Schumacher, 1999; Peters, 2002). Other challenges have to do with governance, staffing, resources and funding including poor workplace conditions, lack of resources, and unsupportive management at the different levels (Bathmaker, & Avis, 2005). A significant challenge is having the resources to build the evidence for successful PDS initiatives over time both on the moral ethical and practical levels in order to convince policymakers and reformers of their viability as a cost-effective potent strategy (Abdal-Haq, 1998). An obvious and hugely daunting challenge is, of course, that of time. Time is a challenge on very many levels. It is not only a finite resource for most, whether teachers or faculty members who have to struggle so hard to meet all their complex and oftentimes impossible commitments, but is also important for the achievement of deep and profound results. Transformation as we well know takes time. Even the standards created originally by the National Council for Accrediting Teacher Education NCATE have four stages before the partnership reaches maturity: beginning level, developing level, standard level when policies are put in place and cooperation becomes the norm, and at lead level when advanced professional development is sustained and regenerative. H. Peel, B. Peel and Baker (2002) have in fact outlined even more stages towards reaching a mature partnership such that at first people are consumed with hostility, they then try to build mutual confidence as they try and counter the lack of trust. Slowly they move into a period of truce with equal participation, followed by a period of small successes to then reach a fifth stage of recognizing the mutual benefits of the partnership. There is then a time for relapse and regression and as new members join in, the process is delayed and requires renewal to finally reach the eighth stage of continued collaborative efforts (Arnold, 2015). The process of solidifying, let alone sustaining and institutionalizing partnerships, take time and quite a lot of energy and resources. Reporting success is not without obstacles as well. Another set of challenges is the often accompanying tensions between the beliefs that are claimed to have been reached and the actual practices during the process and journey of creating partnerships. This may be due to a lack of awareness and weak reflections on individual and collective behaviours. During our field study, several such examples emerged. During visits and interviews in many instances, leaders and school principals claimed to be highly democratic, empowering and participatory when it was very clear from their behaviour that they were not and were indeed very authoritarian. Meanwhile, whilst many spoke about the egalitarian relationships that had emerged between university faculty and school teachers, the truth is that there were other sets of hierarchical relationships and behaviours within schools that were quite evident between regular teachers and teachers in schools who held a Ph.D. Another important challenge was that teachers were not given official recognition, encouragement and time to engage in CPD. Moreover, many of the teachers were pulled out of their schools and transferred to other schools. Some even taught in more than one school. The overload was huge. 68 Conclusion and The Way Forward Using the four NCATE levels, our partnership is probably somewhere in the third level where some policies are in place but more needs to be done to make PDS more sustainable and regenerative. Clearly, the PDS participants seem to be performing well and are more focused on their students. Their time management has improved and their capacity to reflect is strengthened. Teachers and faculty have stronger and better relations with students and their pedagogies have much improved. University partners have a greater understanding of the work of teachers and have become involved in more meaningful reflection on their teaching and learning. Greater professional growth was perceived amongst teachers and collaboration is slowly becoming the norm. Stereotypes of teaching and teachers are being questioned and changed. New concepts and themes are being introduced such as inclusion, Global Citizenship, STEAM and Sustainable Development. Mentorship is an effective part of teacher and faculty growth, empowerment and retention (Snow, Flynn, Whisenand, & Mohr, 2016). A fundamental recommendation is to mainstream and deepen the institutional presence of school-university partnerships to ensure sustainability. In many parts of the world, school-university partnerships are supported by legal frameworks and official documents. In Hong Kong, school-university partnerships were endorsed by a major government document. Many initiatives are government-funded and initiated. In the USA, the Holmes group was a consortium of large universities offering teacher education. In the UK and Wales, school-university partnerships were formally established in the nineties and were introduced as a national statutory requirement for initial teacher education (NG & Chan, 2012). Furthermore, school-university partnerships need to expand to include as many stakeholders as possible such as other faculties/disciplines, students, the teaching profession and the practice field, international and national institutions, community schools, parent education programs, policymakers and most certainly civil society (Smith, 2016). Most importantly school-university partnerships need to develop district models where the partnership between the university is one that is fostered with a whole district. This was actually a demand made by several of the teachers participating in the current partnership and in particular the mentor from the Jasmin school mentioned in the vignette on page 65. What is most needed is to witness a transition from what some have called first-order change to secondorder change (Ross, et al., 1999). What this means basically is not stopping at making what exists more efficient as a result of the partnership, but making bolder structural transformations around school-university partnerships and Professional Development Schools so that new roles, behaviours and goals emerge for those participating in the partnership. Moreover, these new transformations need to be supported by policies and structures. Policymakers need to revisit existing structures in both institutions entering the partnership as well as the reward systems. Suggestions in that direction have already been presented to the Egyptian authorities. An official document was presented to several relevant committees outlining the structures, workload releases and incentives proposed as follows: With regard to legal frameworks and structures, it was proposed that a law be enforced to oblige universities and the Ministry of Education to set up Professional Development Schools. In addition, it was suggested that universities and schools establish internal rules to encourage the formation of Peer Communities of Learners. Time spent in those activities would be regarded as official work time for both teachers and faculty. Having a partnership with a professional development school is to become a prerequisite for faculty accreditation by the National Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Education. Finally, an important component was the establishment of a national structure that would coordinate and oversee the formation of such partnerships as well as monitor and evaluate their evolution. In order to incentivize school-university partnership at the university level the project suggested the following faculty policies and practices: • Promotion of faculty should be based on higher weightings for community service and mentorship of school teachers. This would respond to the need for extrinsic motivation amongst some of the university faculty. • Contrary to current practices, collaborative research should be given higher points in assessing the dossier for promotion and tenure. Currently, collaborative research is not high in the promotion evaluation system 69 in national universities. • More weight needs to be placed for action research and research leading to school improvement. • The dossier for promotion should contain evidence of participation in peer communities of learners as a way of making the time and effort spent worthwhile. • Practitioners should be invited and encouraged to lecture at university. This seemed to work as a strong incentive amongst the teachers in the SUP4PCL partnership and it seemed to greatly motivate them to sustain the partnership and do better in school. • Universities should be able to offer outstanding practitioners honorary diplomas. • Faculties and schools of education going through reforms should invite school practitioners to be part of the process. • Mentorship should constitute part of the offerings by faculties of education. Mentorship has proven to work quite well for the school teachers joining the SUP4PCL project and was recognized as a good strategy for lifelong learning and for improving teaching and learning in schools, but also in university. • Faculty members engaged in school university partnerships should be getting a reduced teaching load. All faculty members in the project complained about overload and the scarcity of time available to support such initiatives. • Faculties of education should establish technology labs for teacher professional development. The labs had apparently worked quite well for mentoring teachers and were also very instrumental for expanding the initiative through school clustering. In order to incentivize school-university partnership at the school level the project suggested the following policies and practices: • The Ministry of Education should have a continuous professional development (CPD) policy that reinforces the formation of peer communities of learners (PCLs). Some were suggesting that this needed to be mandatory. • The training and quality assurance units in each school should oversee and support the formation of PCLs. The project had greatly strengthened and empowered the quality assurance and training units and given them a new role that needs to be maintained. Their activities were made that much more effective through the existence of Peer Communities of Learners. • Schools should make time and space available for the activation of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and the meetings of the PCLs. This was not only the views of the authors of this case study and the coordination leadership of the project, International good practices but was also the prevailing views of almost all the teachers interviewed. They needed the time and space to meet as very often this was a great challenge and the benefits they got out of meeting regularly and learning collaboratively were clearly significant. • University should support and strengthen school mentorship and the training units. All teachers in the project were clearly very grateful for the opportunity they were given to connect with the university, be mentored by faculty, learn new methods, ideas and practices. 70 It must be emphasized that all the suggested policies and ideas for the sustainability of the partnership are not only widely shared by the participants in the initiative, from both schools and universities, but also other stakeholders such as the various committees on education in the Supreme Council of Universities SCU. This is particularly important for the sake of ensuring that when we do borrow concepts and practices from other regions and societies that they are not completely taken out of context (Zaalouk, 2013). More stakeholder conversations are extremely necessary in order to make the right policy choices. During many of the meetings with the project consortium when ideas were discussed on the way forward it was often suggested that perhaps in the case of Egypt what would work best was to enact clear cut directives on the establishment of Peer Communities of learners and the participation therein as preconditions for promotions. Many believed that following the Asian path may be best suited for the Egyptian context. A final conference is planned in March for the presentation of the results of the initiative in the presence of key policymakers and other stakeholders. A whole day is devoted to policy dialogue, a press conference and the way forward. The conference in March 2020 will not only serve as a conduit for dissemination but will, in fact, be regarded as an intervention to allow the different views on the way forward to surface as guidance for the necessary policy formulations. 77 Appendix 4: Interview Questions Dear participant, We are extremely honoured to have you as part of this project entitled School and University Partnerships for Peer Communities of Learners. We believe that through our combined efforts we will contribute to the transformation of the quality of teaching and learning in our various countries. The following tool requires that you carefully disclose how your participation in this project might have had an impact on the development of peer communities of learners (PCL) in your educational institution and how these PCLs in turn might have supported the transformation of your professional learning practice. Please rest assured that your responses will be confidential and will only be used for research purposes. Feel free to write openly and elaborately. Thanking you for your kind collaboration Demographic information: Gender: Female Male Age: 20-30 31-40 41-50 Above 51 Date of joining the project: Month Year Area of specialization: Years of experience: Nature of the educational Institution: School University 78 ،نوكراشملا ةداسلا “نيملعتملا نم نارقلأا عمتجم ءانبل ةسردملاو ةعماجلا نيب ةكارشلا” عورشملا ذه يف انعم مكتكراشم و مكدوجو انفرشي نم بلطتت ةقفرملا ةادلأا هذه .اندلاب يف ملعتلاو ميلعتلا ةدوجب ءاقترلاا يلإ لصن فوس ةكرتشملا اندوهج للاخ نم نأ نمؤن نحن سيقت امك .ةيميلعتلا مكتاسسؤم يف نارقلأا نيب ملعتلا تاعمتجم نيوكتو ءانب يف عورشملا اذه يف مكتكراشم رثأ نع حاصفلإا مكتدايس ضارغلأ لاإ مدختست نلو ةيرس لظت فوس تاباجلإا عيمج نأ مكتارضحل دكؤن .ينهملا مكئادأ ىلع تاعمتجملا هذهل مكئامتنا رثأ ةادلأا .يملعلا ثحبلا .حيرص و حضاو لكشب ةلئسلأا ىلع ةباجلإا يف ةضافتسلاا ءاجرب مكنواعت نسح مكل نيركاش :ةيساسأ تانايب ىثنأ ركذ : عونلا رثكأ وأ اماع 51 اماع 50 -41 اماع 40-31 اماع 30-20 : ةيرمعلا ةئفلا ةنس رهش : عورشملاب قاحتللاا خيرات :صصختلا :ةربخلا تاونس ةعماج ةسردم : ةيميلعتلا ةسسؤملا ةعيبط 79 1) Which events and seminars did you participate in during the life of the project? عورشملا اذه رمع للاخ اهيف متكراش يتلا تاءاقللاو تاعامتجلااو ةطشنلأا ركذ ءاجرلا 2) To what extent did you feel renewed and/or empowered by virtue of this partnership? ؟ ةعماجلاو ةسردملا نيب ةكارشلل جاتنك نيكمتلاو ددجتلاب رعشت ىدم يلأ 3) Do you practice regular reflection? how often and what is your preferred mode of reflection? ؟ ركفتلل كيدل لضفملا بولسلأا وه امو ؟ ةرم مك ؟ماظتناب لمأتلا \ركفتلاب موقت له 4) How has reflection during your participation in the project impacted on your learning? مكملعت ىلع عورشملا يف مكتكراشم ءانثا لمأتلا و ركفتلا تايلمع رثأ فصو ءاجرب 5) To what extent do you feel you have become an agent of change? ؟ رييغتلل كرحم تحبصأ كنأب رعشت ىدم يأ ىلإ 6) What are your individual goals? And how have they changed as a result of the partnership? ؟ ةكارشلل جاتنك فادهلأا كلت تريغت فيكو ؟ةيدرفلا كفادهأ يه ام 7) Has this experience given you a sense of belonging and how has your professional identity changed? ؟ ةينهملا كتيوه تريغت فيكو ؟ ءامتنلااب ساسحإ ةبرجتلا هذه كتحنم له 8) Please describe the various peer communities of learners that you belong to? .اهيلإ نومتنت يئلآلا نارقلأا نيب ملعتلا تاعمتجم عاونأ ركذ ءاجرب 9) To what extent do you identify with the community of professionals at your workplace and how is this manifested? ؟كلذ نع ريبعتلا متي فيك و ؟لمعلا ناكم يف ملعتلا عمتجم وحن ءامتنلااب روعش مكيدل ىدم يأ يلإ 10) To what extent do you identify with the community of professionals beyond your workplace and how is this manifested? ؟كلذ نع ريبعتلا متي فيك و ؟لمعلا قاطن جراخ ناكم يف ملعتلا عمتجم وحن ءامتنلااب روعش مكيدل ىدم يأ يلإ 11) To what extent has the professional support gained in this project been useful and how? ؟ةينهملا مكتاسرامم يف يوبرتلا داشرلإا و معدلا نم ةدافتسا كانه تناك ىدم يأ ىلإ 12) Do you now practice collaborative teaching? ؟ ينواعتلا سيردتلا نلآا سرامت له 13) What joint projects and programs are you engaged in currently? ؟ ايلاح اهيف كرتشملا ىرخلأا جماربلا و عيراشملا يه ام 14) What joint projects and programs are you planning for as a result of the partnership? ؟ ةكارشلل ةجيتنك اهل نوططخت يتلا ىرخلأا جماربلا وأ عيراشملا يه ام 15) Please describe what changes/ developments, if any, that have occurred to your teaching approaches since joining the project? عورشملا اذه يف مكتكراشم ذنم سيردتلا يف مكبولسأ ىلع تأرط يتلا تاريغتلا فصو ءاجرب 80 16) What marginal improvements can you already depict in the following domains? ؟ةيلاتلا تلااجملا يف اهفصت نأ كنكمي يتلا ةيبناجلا تاروطتلا يه ام A) In what ways has your organization of teaching changed as a result of this project? Please give examples ةلثملاا ضعب ءاطعا ءاجرب ، عورشملا يف مكتكراشمل ةجيتن سيردتلل طيطختلا بولسأ ريغت مت فيك B) In what ways has the presentation of your content changed as a result of this project? Please give examples ةلثملأا ضعب ءاطعإ ءاجرب ،؟عورشملا يف مكتكراشمل ةجيتن سيردتلا ءانثأ يملعلا يوتحملا ضرع بولسأ رييغت مت فيك C) In what ways has your classroom instruction changed as a result of this project? Please give examples ةلثملأا ضعب ءاطعإ ءاجرب ؟عورشملا يف مكتكراشمل ةجيتن يساردلا فصلا لخاد سيردتلا قرط رييغت مت فيك D) In what ways has your interaction with students changed as a result of this project? Please give examples ةلثملأا ضعب ءاطعإ ءاجرب ؟عورشملا يف مكتكراشمل ةجيتن بلاطلا عم مكلعافت بولسأ رييغت مت فيك 17) To what extent do you employ digital applications and tools in your teaching and learning as a result of this project? Please give examples ةلثملاا ضعب ءاطعإ ءاجرب ؟عورشملا يف مكتكراشم ذنم يتاذلا ملعتلاو سيردتلا يف ميلعتلا ايجولونكت مادختسا متي ىدم يأ ىلإ 18) What are identified gaps between aspired to practice and actual practice? Please give examples ةلثملأا ضعب ءاطعإ ءاجرب .اهقيبطت ىلع مكتردق و ىلثملا ةيوبرتلا تاسرامملا يف مكتاروصت نيب تاوجفلا حيضوت يجري 19) In Conclusion, we would like you to order the following domains of learning in accordance to their impact upon yourselves during your participation in the project. Please prioritize in ascending order. (i.e. the most important gets 1, and the least important gets 4). - The self in learning and teaching ………… - Professional Identity ………… - Mentorship ………… - Teaching and practice ………… 1 مقر نأ يأ ايدعاصت تلااجملا بيترت متيو .ةدافتسلاا ةجرد قفو عورشملا يف مكتكراشم ءانثأ ملعتلا تلااجم بيترت يجري ، ةادلأا هذه ةياهن يف :مكيدل ةيمهلأاو ةدافتسلاا يف لجم لقأ لثمي 4 مقرو لاجم مهأ لثمي -................ ملعتلاو سيردتلا يف يتاذلا ومنلا -...............ةينهملا ةيوهلا -.....................يوبرتلا داشرلاا -.............ةينهملا تاسرامملاو سيردتلا بيلاسا 81 Appendix 5: IRB consent form, IRB Approval and CAPMAS Approval Letter ةيثحب ةسارد يف ةكراشملل ةقبسم ةقفاوم ةرامتسا سوململا رثلاا و اهتاوطخ ، ةعماجلا و ةسردملا نيب ةكارشلا ةعيبط : ثحبلا ناونع كولعز كلم د.ا :يسيئرلا ثحابلا [email protected] :ينورتكللاا ديربلا 01229911116 :فتاهلا سوململا رثلاا و اهتاوطخ ، ةعماجلا و ةسردملا نيب ةكارشلا ةعيبط نع ةيثحب ةسارد ىف ةكراشملل وعدم تنا ةعماجلاو ةسردملا نييوتسم يلع يوبرت ريوطت ثادحا وه ةساردلا فده .يملع رمتؤم و هصصختم هيرود ىف رشنتس ثحبلا جئاتن نمزلا نم ناتعاس يصقا دح يلع ثحبلا اذه ىف ةكراشملل ةعقوتملا ةدملا .ةننقملا ريغ ةيدرفلا تلاباقملا و ةيعامجلا ةيرؤبلا تاشقانملا نمض ةكراشملا ىلع لمتشت ةساردلا تاءارجا . ثحبلا اذه ىف ةكراشملا نم ةعقوتم تاقياضم وأ رطاخم دجوت لا ةعقوتملا رطاخملا .ركفتلا بولسا ةسرامم يف نيكراشملل ةيفاضإ ةصرف يطعت فوس ثحبلا يف ةكراشملا نم ةعقوتملا ةدافتسلاا ةيرس نوكت فوس ثحبلا اذه ىف اهب ىلدتس ىتلا تامولعملا :ةيصوصخلا مارتحاو ةيرسلا ، كولعز كلم د.ا ىلا هجوت نا بجي ةكراشملا هذه نع ةجتان تاباصا ىأ ثودح دنعوأ اهيف نيكراشملا قوقح وأ ةساردلا هذهب ةقلعتم ةلئسأ يأ 25611492 كنكميو .كل قحت ايازم ىأ نادقف وأ تابوقع ىأ نمضتيلا ةكراشملا نع عانتملاا نأ ثيح ,ىعوطت لمع لاا ىهام ةساردلا هذه ىف ةكراشملا نا .ايازملا هذهل نادقف وأ ةبوقع نود نم تقو ىأ ىف ةكراشملا نع فقوتلا اضيأ .......................................................... :ءاضملاا ................................................... : كراشملا مسا ............../................/......... : خيراتلا 82 83 84 85 Appendix 6: Alignment of FGD Questions with Structure and Process of the SU Partnership Table Alignment of FGD questions with structure and process of the SU partnership Structure Process 1 How are decisions made concerning processes of work pertaining to the partnership examples? What evidence is there to support trust, respect and closeness? 2 How is commitment to the partnership expressed How does knowledge exchange/transfer take place in the PCL and is there new knowledge added? 3 What evidence shows a sense of belonging to the community/groups? What evidence is there for providing equal opportunities for LLL in your PCL and institutions? 4 What are the frequencies of meetings? What has been the primordial purpose of your meetings? 5 What topics or activities take place during PCL meetings (who makes decisions) Who decides for purpose? 7 To what extent do you discuss issues around practitioners? 8 To what extent do you discuss issues around research and inquiry? 86 Appendix 7: Alignment of FGD Questions with the Impact of the SU Partnership Table Alignment of FGD questions with the impact of the SU partnership Impact Title Main question FGD question Impact 1 “The self in Teaching and Learning” How self-reflection and the acquired learning philosophy impact on teaching and learning To what extent did you feel renewed and/or empowered by virtue of this partnership? Impact 2 Professional identity, value and development in teaching and learning” How professional identity articulates itself within learning communities across borders NA Impact 3 “Professional communication and dialogue in teaching and learning” How professionals are able to collaborate in research, teaching and learning What partnerships with structures are you building with faculties of arts and science? Impact 4 “Professional knowledge of skills in teaching and learning” This refers to the skills and pedagogies employed by professionals to plan for and manage the classrooms What marginal improvements can you depict? Impact 5 “Personal and professional digital capacity in teaching and learning” This refers to the awareness gained by professionals on the digital possibilities and the ability to apply in accordance to identified gaps and challenges NA 93 Memorandum of Understanding Between The Ministry of Education and Technical Education located at 12 Al Falaki Street, El-Sayeda Zainab, Cairo, Egypt, and represented by The Minister of Education and Technical Education, Prof. Tarek Shawki And The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research located at 101 Kasr El Ainy St., Kasr El Ainy, ElSayeda Zainab, Cairo, Egypt, and represented by The Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Prof. Khalid Atef Abdul Ghaffar And The Middle East Institute for Higher Education located at The American University in Cairo, Teseen Street, New Cairo, Egypt, and represented by The Provost, Prof. Ehab Abdel-Rahman Preface: The Middle East Institute for Higher Education coordinates the project’s initiative, which is financed by The European Union ERASMUS+, to develop partnerships between universities and schools that adopt Professional Development schools. The initiative would develop governmental schools as well as faculties of education through building Peer Communities of Learners among them. Similar initiatives in Egypt and developed countries appeared in the previous century and were proven to be successful at adopting and developing schools that were named Professional Development Schools because they led to the professional development of the teachers. Through cooperation and integration between universities and schools, the initiative would guarantee quality within the Faculties of Education and schools and meet the teachers’ needs in regards to development and qualifications. Article One The previous preface is considered an integral part of the memorandum of understanding and complements its provisions Article Two General Objectives The European Union’s project, which is coordinated by The Middle East Institute for Higher Education, aims to append 45 governmental schools with three Faculties of Education from Ain Shams University, Alexandria University and Helwan University with the following criteria: • Public School • Neighboring Schools. • A school with a Quality Assurance Unit • A school that would be willing to participate in the project • A school that has a technological infrastructure As such, the project aims to contribute to the schools and quality assurance units’ development with continuous technical support. This initiative is an integral part of the national initiative of developing the faculties of education that is led by the Supreme Council of Universities. Furthermore, the associated schools are an authentic part of the development. 94 Article Three Framework of Implementation and Stakeholders The initiative would be implemented over the period of three years and would start with fifteen schools, five schools for each of the three universities. Afterwards, the schools would form clusters with other neighboring schools to expand and reach a total of forty-five schools at the end of the three years. At the beginning of the project, research to assess the needs of the schools would be performed before giving technical support. The technical support would be initiated in the first year of the project through action research performed in ARAS, which has activities on educational guidance and the formation of peer communities of learners. These activities were accredited by The Professional Academy for Teachers in 2015. In the following years of the project, the project’s team would develop training and coaching material, which will be accredited by the Professional Academy for Teachers and published by the ministry however it should find suitable. Accordingly and with regards to the importance of the partnership between higher education and pre-university education, consistent communication and integration between the development of both faculties of education and schools would be built on the foundations of research, science and awareness of the focal performance of the teachers. The Ministry of Education and Technical Education (beneficiary 1), and Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (beneficiary 2) agreed to write a memorandum of understanding with Middle East Institute for Higher Education at the American University in Cairo (beneficiary 3) to facilitate the work on the mentioned initiative and to support the development of the faculties of education and the chosen schools. The roles and commitments of all beneficiaries in the memorandum of understanding are concluded in the following articles: Article Four Commitments of The Ministry of Education and Technical Education 1. Beneficiary one would choose a coordinator to facilitate the work with the associated schools and prepare a monthly report on the progress of the work. 2. Beneficiary one would facilitate the work of researchers from faculties of education in the chosen schools. 3. Beneficiary one would choose a representative from the training unit at the chosen schools to mobilize the work at the unit. 4. Beneficiary one would delegate the school principles of the chosen schools to implement the recommendations from other beneficiaries based on the follow-ups and supervisions in the schools. 5. Beneficiary one would delegate the undersecretary of the Ministry of Education to support the project’s initiative and provide all the needed facilitation for the principles of the chosen school with authorization. 6. Beneficiary one would facilitate and activate the training and quality units in the schools by holding periodical and ongoing workshops with continuous communication with the universities and faculties of education. Article Five Commitments of The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research The Governmental Universities would act in the framework of this memorandum of understanding and activate the initiative’s objectives according to the stages of the project and detailed responsibilities of beneficiaries. 95 Article Six Commitment of The Middle East Institute for Higher Education at the American University 1. Beneficiary three would manage the project. 2. Beneficiary three vows to bring superior international expertise in the field. 3. Beneficiary three would offer technical support in assessing the needs of the schools. 4. Beneficiary three would coordinate national and international efforts to develop educational material for schools to activate Continuing Professional Development. 5. Materials at the end of the project will depart to The Professional Academy for Teachers. 6. Beneficiary three would finance the required preparations for the three faculties of education to activate the quality assurance units at the fifteen schools without bearing any financial burdens on The Ministry of Education and Technical Education or The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Article Seven In case of any disputes between the three beneficiaries, friendly resolutions would be used. Article Eight The project’s term is three years and could not be extended without the three beneficiaries’ approval. Furthermore, the memorandum could not be modified without the three beneficiaries’ written approval. 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